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Chap.. Copyright No.__. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



Ojr jUibersiDe 0lDtne Classics 
THE ONE-HOSS SHAY 

AND OTHER POEMS 




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THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS 
AND OTHER POEMS, GAY AND GRAVE 



BY 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 



RIVERSIDE 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

@tf)t Oitoer^ibe pre??, <£amun&ge 

1900 



TWO COPIES RECEIVED, 

Library of Coisgra*% 
Offlco o f tfee 

MAY 2 8 1900 

Reg|»tor of Copyrights, 
SECOND COPY. 

59071 

COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



EDITOK'S NOTE 

Humor is so penetrating and pervasive a qual- 
ity that a writer possessed of it can scarcely re- 
frain from its expression even when engaged on 
serious themes. It will lurk behind matter of 
fact and send out its playful forays when one 
least looks for it. An author who is charged with 
this quality rarely goes any length in his mind 
without betraying its presence, and even so the 
very earnestness of his speech will frequently find 
an outlet through this channel, for tears and 
smiles are its component parts. 

One might, if he chose, make a pretty argument 
for the confusion of the advocates of the Baconian 
personality of Shakespeare who maintain that 
Shakespeare had Bacon's learning, by pointing out 
that Bacon had not Shakespeare's humor, and that 
no man holding humor as a sponge holds water, 
as did the author of Shakespeare's comedies, his- 
tories, and tragedies, could have retained it through 
the thousand pages which go to make up Bacon's 
Works. 

It is with a little sense of its artificiality, there- 
fore, that the editor bisects Dr. Holmes in this vol- 
ume and throws upon one side of the lino his gay, 
upon the other his grave poetry. Is " My Aunt " 
a laughing mock ? Does " The Last Leaf " hold up 



vi EDITOR'S NOTE 

only the hour-glass? Still, it is unquestionable 
that this versatile singer had his moods of down- 
right merriment when he seized a piece of gro- 
tesque fun and shook it till it scattered laughter 
in every member, and he had his hours too of 
keen intellectual exploration when he wound his 
way through the spirals of the chambered nau- 
tilus, or of spiritual reverie when he breathed a 
hymn which sought the very centre of life. And 
about these two poles of his nature were drawn 
whimsies and vagaries it may be, or speculations 
and deep emotions. 

But between these two extremes was the most 
diversified playground of his imagination and 
fancy, and in this temperate zone of kindly nature 
will be found the greater part of his writing. It 
was easy to find enough of his characteristic verse 
and to divide it with careless hand into two loosely 
constructed groups ; the difficulty was to know 
what to leave out, and if one misses his favorite 
poem in this small volume, he must remember 
that this is but a handful drawn from the bin, 
and any one who has tried to take up a handful of 
grain knows how surely some that was grasped 
slips out. 

H. E. S. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Deacon's Masterpiece 1 

Parson Turell's Legacy ..... 6 
How the Old Horse won the Bet . . 12 

The Broomstick Train 19 

My Aunt 25 

The Dorchester Giant 27 

The Height of the Ridiculous . . . .29 

The Spectre Pig 31 

The Ballad of the Oysterman . . . .35 

The Hot Season 37 

The Stethoscope Song .39 

Bill and Joe 43 

Latter-Day Warnings 45 

Contentment 47 

De Sauty . . . . . . . . .50 

Ode for a Social Meeting 53 

The Archbishop and Gil Blas . . . .54 
Old Cambridge, July 3, 1875 .... 58 
Epilogue to the Breakfast-Table Series . . 62 

The Chambered Nautilus 65 

Old Ironsides 67 

The Last Leaf 69 

The Cambridge Churchyard 73 

Dorothy Q 77 

The Organ-Blower 80 



viii CONTENTS 

Agnes 82 

Avis 106 

A Sun-Day Hymn 108 

The Crooked Footpath 109 

Robinson of Leyden Ill 

My Aviary 113 

A Ballad of the Boston Tea-Party . . 117 
Grandmother's Story of Bunker-Hill Battle . 121 

The School-Boy 132 

At the Saturday Club 145 

The Iron Gate 151 



THE ONE-HOSS SHAY 



THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE 

OR, THE WONDERFUL " ONE-HOSS SHAY " 
A LOGICAL STORY 

[The following note was prefaced to the poem when it 
appeared in an illustrated edition.] 

"The Wonderful One-Hoss Shay " is a perfectly intelli- 
gible conception, whatever material difficulties it presents. 
It is conceivable that a being of an order superior to human- 
ity should so understand the conditions of matter that he 
could construct a machine which should go to pieces, if not 
into its constituent atoms, at a given moment of the future. 
The mind may take a certain pleasure in this picture of the 
impossible. The event follows as a logical consequence of 
the presupposed condition of things. 

There is a practical lesson to be got out of the story. 
Observation shows us in what point any particular mechan- 
ism is most likely to give way. In a wagon, for instance, the 
weak point is where the axle enters the hub or nave. When 
the wagon breaks down, three times out of four, I think, it 
is at this point that the accident occurs. The workman 
should see to it that this part should never give way ; then 
find the next vulnerable place, and so on, until he arrives 
logically at the perfect result attained by the deacon. 

HAVE you heard of the wonderful one-hoss 
shay, 
That was built in such a logical way 



2 THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE 

It ran a hundred years to a day, 
And then, of a sudden, it — ah, but stay, 
I '11 tell you what happened without delay, 
Scaring the parson into fits, 
Frightening people out of their wits, — 
Have you ever heard of that, I say ? 

Seventeen hundred and fifty-five. 
Georgius Secundus was then alive, — 
Snuffy old drone from the German hive. 
That was the year when Lisbon-town 
Saw the earth open and gulp her down, 
And Braddock's army was done so brown, 
Left without a scalp to its crown. 
It was on the terrible Earthquake-day 
That the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay. 

Now in building of chaises, I tell you what, 

There is always somewhere a weakest spot, — 

In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill, 

In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill, 

In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace, — lurking still, 

Find it somewhere you must and will, — 

Above or below, or within or without, — 

And that 's the reason, beyond a doubt, 

That a chaise breaks down, but does n't wear out 

But the Deacon swore (as Deacons do, 

With an " I dew vum," or an " I tell yeou") 

He would build one shay to beat the taown 

'N' the keounty V all the kentry raoun' ; 

It should be so built that it could n' break daown : 



THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE 3 

u Yut" said the Deacon, " 't 's mighty plain 
Thut the weakes' place mus' stan' the strain; 
'N' the way t' fix it, nz I maintain, 

Is only jest 
T' make that place nz strong nz the rest." 

So the Deacon inquired of the village folk 

Where he conld find the strongest oak, 

That conld n't be split nor bent nor broke, — 

That was for spokes and floor and sills ; 

He sent for lancewood to make the thills ; 

The crossbars were ash, from the straightest tree3> 

The panels of white-wood, that cnts like cheese, 

But lasts like iron for things like these ; 

The hnbs of logs from the " Settler's ellum," — 

Last of its timber, — they could n't sell 'em, 

Never an axe had seen their chips, 

And the wedges flew from between their lips, 

Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips ; 

Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw, 

Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too, 

Steel of the finest, bright and blue ; 

Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide ; 

Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide 

Found in the pit when the tanner died. 

That was the way he " put her through." 

" There ! " said the Deacon, " naow she '11 dew ! " 

Do ! I tell you, I rather guess 
She was a wonder, and nothing less ! 
Colts grew horses, beards turned gray, 
Deacon and deaconess dropped away, 



4 THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE 

Children and grandchildren — where were they? 
But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay 
As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day ! 

Eighteen hundred; — it came and found 
The Deacon's masterpiece strong and sound. 
Eighteen hundred increased by ten ; — 
" Hahnsum kerridge " they called it then. 
Eighteen hundred and twenty came ; — 
Running as usual ; much the same. 
Thirty and forty at last arrive, 
And then come fifty, and fifty-five. 

Little of all we value here 

Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year 

Without both feeling and looking queer. 

In fact, there 's nothing that keeps its youth, 

So far as I know, but a tree and truth. 

(This is a moral that runs at large ; 

Take it. — You 're welcome. — No extra charge.) 

First of November, — the Earthquake-day, — 
There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay, 
A general flavor of mild decay, 
But nothing local, as one may say. 
There could n't be, — for the Deacon's art 
Had made it so like in every part 
That there was n't a chance for one to start. 
For the wheels were just as strong as the thills, 
And the floor was just as strong as the sills, 
And the panels just as strong as the floor, 
And the whipple-tree neither less nor more, 



THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE 

And the back crossbar as strong as the fore, 
And spring and axle and hub encore. 
And yet, as a whole, it is past a doubt 
In another hour it will be worn out I 

First of November, 'Fifty-five ! 
This morning the parson takes a drive. 
Now, small boys, get out of the way ! 
Here comes the wonderful one-hoss shay, 
Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay. 
1 Huddup ! " said the parson. — Off went they. 
The parson was working his Sunday's text, — 
Had got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed 
At what the — Moses — was coming next. 
All at once the horse stood still, 
Close by the meet'n'-house on the hill. 
First a shiver, and then a thrill, 
Then something decidedly like a spill, — 
And the parson was sitting upon a rock, 
At half past nine by the meet'n'-house clock, - 
Just the hour of the Earthquake shock ! 
What do you think the parson found, 
When he got up and stared around ? 
The poor old chaise in a heap or mound, 
As if it had been to the mill and ground ! 
You see, of course, if you 're not a dunce, 
How it went to pieces all at once, — 
All at once, and nothing first, — 
Just as bubbles do when they burst. 

End of the wonderful one-hoss shay. 
Logic is logic. That 's all I say. 



6 PARSON TURELL'S LEGACY 
PARSON TURELL'S LEGACY 

OR, THE PRESIDENT'S OLD ARM-CHAIR 
A MATHEMATICAL STORY 

[The Professor had been making some experiments in 
chloroform, and it was so evident that his friend the Auto- 
crat relieved him at the end of the prelude, by reading the 
poem himself.] 

I'M the fellah that tole one day 
The tale of the won'erf ul one-hoss-shay. 
Wan' to hear another ? Say. 

— Funny, was n' it ? Made me laugh, — 
I 'm too modest, I am, by half, — 
Made me laugh 9 s though I sh'd split, — 
Cahn' a fellah like fellah's own wit ? 

— Fellahs keep sayin', — " Well, now that 's nice : 
Did it once, but cahn' do it twice." — 

Don' you b'lieve the' 'z no more fat ; 
Lots in the kitch'n 'z good 'z that. 
Fus'-rate throw, 'n' no mistake, — 
Han' us the props for another shake ; — 
Know I '11 try, V guess I '11 win ; 
Here sh' goes for hit 'm ag'in ! 

Facts respecting an old arm-chair. 

At Cambridge. Is kept in the College there. 

Seems but little the worse for wear. 

That 's remarkable when I say 

It was old in President Holyoke's day. 

(One of his boys, perhaps you know, 

Died, at one hundred, years ago.) 

He took lodgings for rain or shine 

Under green bed-clothes in '69. 



PARSON TURELL'S LEGACY 

Know old Cambridge ? Hope you do. — 
Born there ? Don't say so ! I was, too. 
(Born in a house with a gambrel-roof , — 
Standing still, if you must have proof. — 
" Gambrel ? — Gambrel ? " — Let me beg 
You '11 look at a horse's hinder leg, — 
First great angle above the hoof, — 
That 's the gambrel ; hence gambrel-roof.) 
Nicest place that ever was seen, — 
Colleges red and Common green, 
Sidewalks brownish with trees between. 
Sweetest spot beneath the skies 
When the canker-worms don't rise, — 
When the dust, that sometimes flies 
Into your mouth and ears and eyes, 
In a quiet slumber lies, 
Not in the shape of unbaked pies 
Such as barefoot children prize. 

A kind of harbor it seems to be, 
Facing the flow of a boundless sea. 
Rows of gray old Tutors stand 
Ranged like rocks above the sand ; 
Rolling beneath them, soft and green, 
Breaks the tide of bright sixteen, — 
One wave, two waves, three waves, four, — 
Sliding up the sparkling floor : 
Then it ebbs to flow no more, 
Wandering off from shore to shore 
With its freight of golden ore ! 
Pleasant place for boys to play ; — 
Better keep your girls away ; 



8 PARSON TURELL'S LEGACY 

Hearts get rolled as pebbles do 

Which countless fingering waves pursue, 

And every classic beach is strown 

With heart-shaped pebbles of blood-red stone. 

But this is neither here nor there ; 

I 'm talking about an old arm-chair. 

You 've heard, no doubt, of Parson Turell ? 

Over at Medf ord he used to dwell ; 

Married one of the Mathers' folk ; 

Got with his wife a chair of oak, — 

Funny old chair with seat like wedge, 

Sharp behind and broad front edge, — 

One of the oddest of human things, 

Turned all over with knobs and rings, — 

But heavy, and wide, and deep, and grand, — 

Fit for the worthies of the land, — 

Chief Justice Sewall a cause to try in, 

Or Cotton Mather to sit — and lie — in. 

Parson Turell bequeathed the same 

To a certain student, — Smith by name ; 

These were the terms, as we are told : 

" Saide Smith saide Chaire to have and holde ; 
When he doth graduate, then to passe 
To y° oldest Youth in y e Senior Classe. 
On payment of " — (naming a certain sum) — 

" By him to whom y e Chaire shall come ; 
He to y e oldest Senior next, 
And soe forever," — (thus runs the text,) — 

" But one Crown lesse than he gave to claime,. 
That being his Debte for use of same." 



PARSON TURELL'S LEGACY 

Smith transferred it to one of the Browns, 

And took his money, — five silver crowns. 

Brown delivered it up to Moore, 

Who paid, it is plain, not five, but four. 

Moore made over the chair to Lee, 

Who gave him crowns of silver three. 

Lee conveyed it unto Drew, 

And now the payment, of course, was two. 

Drew gave up the chair to Dunn, — 

All he got, as you see, was one. 

Dunn released the chair to Hall, 

And got by the bargain no crown at all. 

And now it passed to a second Brown, 

Who took it and likewise claimed a crown. 

When Brown conveyed it unto Ware, 

Having had one crown, to make it fair, 

He paid him two crowns to take the chair ; 

And Ware, being honest, (as all Wares be,) 

He paid one Potter, who took it, three. 

Four got Robinson ; five got Dix ; 

Johnson primus demanded six ; 

And so the sum kept gathering still 

Till after the battle of Bunker's Hill. 

When paper money became so cheap, 
Folks would n't count it, but said " a heap," 
A certain Richards, — the books declare^ — 
(A. M. in '90 ? I 've looked with care 
Through the Triennial, — name not there,) — 
This person, Richards, was offered then 
Eightscore pounds, but would have ten ; 



10 PARSON TURELL'S LEGACY 

Nine, I think, was the sum he took, — 

Not quite certain, — but see the book. 

By and by the wars were still, 

But nothing had altered the Parson's will. 

The old arm-chair was solid yet, 

But saddled with such a monstrous debt ! 

Things grew quite too bad to bear, 

Paying such sums to get rid of the chair ! 

But dead men's fingers hold awful tight, 

And there was the will in black and white, 

Plain enough for a child to spell. 

What should be done no man could tell, 

For the chair was a kind of nightmare curse, 

And every season but made it worse. 

As a last resort, to clear the doubt, 

They got old Governor Hancock out. 

The Governor came with his Lighthorse Troop 

And his mounted truckmen, all cock-a-hoop ; 

Halberds glittered and colors flew, 

French horns whinnied and trumpets blew, 

The yellow fifes whistled between their teeth, 

And the bumble-bee bass-drums boomed beneath ; 

So he rode with all his band, 

Till the President met him, cap in hand. 

The Governor " hefted " the crowns, and said, — 

" A will is a will, and the Parson 's dead." 

The Governor hefted the crowns. Said he, — 

" There is your p'int. And here 's my fee. 

These are the terms you must fulfil, — 

On such conditions I break the will ! " 

The Governor mentioned what these should be. 



PARSON TURELL'S LEGACY 11 

(Just wait a minute and then you '11 see.) 

The President prayed. Then all was still, 

And the Governor rose and broke the will ! 

" About those conditions? " Well, now you go 

And do as I tell you, and then you '11 know. 

Once a year, on Commencement day, 

If you 11 only take the pains to stay, 

You '11 see the President in the Chair, 

Likewise the Governor sitting there. 

The President rises ; both old and young 

May hear his speech in a foreign tongue, 

The meaning whereof, as lawyers swear, 

Is this : Can I keep this old arm-chair ? 

And then his Excellency bows, 

As much as to say that he allows. 

The Yice-Gub. next is called by name ; 

He bows like t' other, which means the same. 

And all the officers round 'em bow, 

As much as to say that they allow. 

And a lot of parchments about the chair 

Are handed to witnesses then and there, 

And then the lawyers hold it clear 

That the chair is safe for another year. 

God bless you, Gentlemen ! Learn to give 

Money to colleges while you live. 

Don't be silly and think you '11 try 

To bother the colleges, when you die, 

With codicil this, and codicil that, 

That Knowledge may starve while Law grows fat ; 

For there never was pitcher that would n't spill, 

And there 's always a flaw in a donkey's will ! 



12 HOW THE OLD HORSE 



HOW THE OLD HORSE WON THE BET 

DEDICATED BY A CONTRIBUTOR TO THE COLLE- 
GIAN, 1830, TO THE EDITORS OF THE HARVARD 
ADVOCATE, 1876 

Unquestionably there is something a little like extrava- 
gance in How the Old Horse won the Bet, which taxes the 
credulity of experienced horsemen. Still there have been 
a good many surprises in the history of the turf and the 
trotting course. 

The Godolphin Arabian was taken from ignoble drudgery 
to become the patriarch of the English racing stock. 

Old Dutchman was transferred from between the shafts 
of a cart to become a champion of the American trotters in 
his time. 

" Old Blue," a famous Boston horse of the early decades 
of this century, was said to trot a mile in less than three 
minutes, but I do not find any exact record of his achieve- 
ments. 

Those who have followed the history of the American 
trotting horse are aware of the wonderful development of 
speed attained in these last years. The lowest time as yet 
recorded is by Maud S., in 2.08|. 

7|1 WAS on the famous trotting-ground, 
JL The betting men were gathered round 
From far and near ; the " cracks " were there 
Whose deeds the sporting prints declare : 
The swift g. m., Old Hiram's nag, 
The fleet s. h., Dan Pfeiifer's brag, 
With these a third — and who is he 
That stands beside his fast b. g. ? 



WON THE BET 13 

Budd Doble, whose catarrhal name 
So fills the nasal trump of fame. 
There too stood many a noted steed 
Of Messenger and Morgan breed ; 
Green horses also, not a few ; 
Unknown as yet what they could do ; 
And all the hacks that know so well 
The scourgings of the Sunday swell. 

Blue are the skies of opening day ; 

The bordering turf is green with May ; 

The sunshine's golden gleam is thrown 

On sorrel, chestnut, bay, and roan ; 

The horses paw and prance and neigh, 

Fillies and colts like kittens play, 

And dance and toss their rippled manes 

Shining and soft as silken skeins ; 

Wagons and gigs are ranged about, 

And fashion flaunts her gay turn-out ; 

Here stands — each youthful Jehu's dream — 

The jointed tandem, ticklish team ! 

And there in ampler breadth expand 

The splendors of the four-in-hand ; 

On faultless ties and glossy tiles 

The lovely bonnets beam their smiles ; 

(The style 's the man, so books avow ; 

The style 's the woman, anyhow) ; 

From flounces frothed with creamy lace 

Peeps out the pug-dog's smutty face, 

Or spaniel rolls his liquid eye, 

Or stares the wiry pet of Skye, — 

O woman, in your hours of ease 

So shy with us, so free with these ! 



14 HOW THE OLD HORSE 

" Come on ! I '11 bet you two to one 
I '11 make him do it ! " " Will you ? Done ! " 

What was it who was bound to do ? 
I did not hear and can't tell you, — 
Pray listen till my story 's through. 
Scarce noticed, back behind the rest, 
By cart and wagon rudely prest, 
The parson's lean and bony bay 
Stood harnessed in his one-horse shay — 
Lent to his sexton for the day ; 
(A funeral — so the sexton said ; 
His mother's uncle's wife was dead.) 

Like Lazarus bid to Dives' feast, 
So looked the poor forlorn old beast ; 
His coat was rough, his tail was bare, 
The gray was sprinkled in his hair ; 
Sportsmen and jockeys knew him not, 
And yet they say he once could trot 
Among the fleetest of the town, 
Till something cracked and broke him down, - 
The steed's, the statesman's, common lot ! 
" And are we then so soon forgot ? " 
Ah me ! I doubt if one of you 
Has ever heard the name " Old Blue," 
Whose fame through all this region rung 
In those old days when I was young ! 

" Bring forth the horse ! " Alas ! he showed 
Not like the one Mazeppa rode ; 
Scant-maned, sharp-backed, and shaky-kneed, 



WON THE BET 15 

The wreck of what was once a steed, 
Lips thin, eyes hollow, stiff in joints ; 
Yet not without his knowing points. 
The sexton laughing in his sleeve, 
As if 't were all a make-believe, 
Led forth the horse, and as he laughed 
Unhitched the breeching from a shaft, 
Unclasped the rusty belt beneath, 
Drew forth the snaffle from his teeth, 
Slipped off his head-stall, set him free 
From strap and rein, — a sight to see ! 

So worn, so lean in every limb, 
It can't be they are saddling him ! 
It is ! his back the pig-skin strides 
And flaps his lank, rheumatic sides ; 
With look of mingled scorn and mirth 
They buckle round the saddle-girth ; 
With horsy wink and saucy toss 
A youngster throws his leg across, 
And so, his rider on his back, 
They lead him, limping, to the track, 
Far up behind the starting-point, 
To limber out each stiffened joint. 

As through the jeering crowd he past, 

One pitying look Old Hiram cast ; 
" Go it, ye cripple, while ye can ! " 

Cried out unsentimental Dan ; 
" A Fast-Day dinner for the crows ! " 

Budd Doble's scoffing shout arose. 



16 HOW THE OLD HORSE 

Slowly, as when the walking-beam 

First feels the gathering head of steam, 

With warning cough and threatening wheeze 

The stiff old charger crooks his knees ; 

At first with cautious step sedate, 

As if he dragged a coach of state ; 

He 's not a colt ; he knows full well 

That time is weight and sure to tell ; 

No horse so sturdy but he fears 

The handicap of twenty years. 

As through the throng on either hand 
The old horse nears the judges' stand, 
Beneath his jockey's feather-weight 
He warms a little to his gait, 
And now and then a step is tried 
That hints of something like a stride. 

" Go ! " — Through his ear the summons stung 
As if a battle-trump had rung ; 
The slumbering instincts long unstirred 
Start at the old familiar word ; 
It thrills like flame through every limb, — 
What mean his twenty years to him ? 
The savage blow his rider dealt 
Fell on his hollow flanks unfelt ; 
The spur that pricked his staring hide 
Unheeded tore his bleeding side ; 
Alike to him are spur and rein, — 
He steps a five-year-old again ! 

Before the quarter pole was past, 
Old Hiram said, " He 9 s going fast." 



WON THE BET 17 

Long ere the quarter was a half, 

The chuckling crowd had ceased to laugh ; 

Tighter his frightened jockey clung 

As in a mighty stride he swung, 

The gravel flying in his track, 

His neck stretched out, his ears laid back, 

His tail extended all the while 

Behind him like a rat-tail file ! 

Off went a shoe, — away it spun, 

Shot like a bullet from a gun ; 

The quaking jockey shapes a prayer 

From scraps of oaths he used to swear ; 

He drops his whip, he drops his rein, 

He clutches fiercely for a mane ; 

He '11 lose his hold — he sways and reels — 

He '11 slide beneath those trampling heels ! 

The knees of many a horseman quake, 

The flowers on many a bonnet shake, 

And shouts arise from left and right, 

"Stick on! Stick on!" "Hould tight! Hould 

tight ! " 
" Cling round his neck and don't let go — 
That pace can't hold — there ! steady ! whoa ! " 
But like the sable steed that bore 
The spectral lover of Lenore, 
His nostrils snorting foam and fire, 
No stretch his bony limbs can tire ; 
And now the stand he rushes by, 
And " Stop him ! — stop him ! " is the cry. 
Stand back ! he 's only just begun — 
He 's having out three heats in one ! 



18 HOW THE OLD HORSE WON 

" Don't rush in front ! he '11 smash your brains ; 
But follow up and grab the reins ! " 
Old Hiram spoke. Dan Pfeiffer heard, 
And sprang impatient at the word ; 
Budd Doble started on his bay, 
Old Hiram followed on his gray, 
And off they spring, and round they go, 
The fast ones doing " all they know." 
Look ! twice they follow at his heels, 
As round the circling course he wheels, 
And whirls with him that clinging boy 
Like Hector round the walls of Troy ; 
Still on, and on, the third time round I 
They 're tailing off ! they 're losing ground t 
Budd Doble's nag begins to fail ! 
Dan Pfeiffer's sorrel whisks his tail ! 
And see ! in spite of whip and shout, 
Old Hiram's mare is giving out ! 
Now for the finish ! at the turn, 
The old horse — all the rest astern — 
Comes swinging in, with easy trot ; 
By Jove ! he 's distanced all the lot ! 

That trot no mortal could explain ; 
Some said, " Old Dutchman come again ! " 
Some took his time, — at least they tried, 
But what it was could none decide ; 
One said he could n't understand 
What happened to his second hand ; 
One said 2.10 ; that could n't be — 
More like two twenty-two or three ; 
Old Hiram settled it at last ; 
" The time was two — too dee-vel-ish fast J " 



THE BROOMSTICK TRAIN 19 

The parson's horse had won the bet ; 
It cost him something of a sweat ; 
Back in the one-hoss shay he went ; 
The parson wondered what it meant, 
And murmnred, with a mild surprise 
And "pleasant twinkle of the eyes, 
" That funeral must have been a trick, 
Or corpses drive at double-quick ; 
I should n't wonder, I declare, 
If brother — Jehu — made the prayer ! " 

And this is all I have to say 
About that tough old trotting bay, 
Huddup ! Huddup ! G'lang ! Good day ! 

Moral for which this tale is told : 
A horse can trot, for all he 's old. 



THE BROOMSTICK TRAIN; OR, THE 
RETURN OF THE WITCHES 

If there are any anachronisms or other inaccuracies in 
this story, the reader will please to remember that the nar- 
rator's memory is liable to be at fault, and if the event re- 
corded interests him, will not worry over any little slips 
or stumbles. 

The terrible witchcraft drama of 1692 has been seriously 
treated, as it well deserves to be. The story has been told 
in two large volumes by the Rev. Charles Wentworth Up- 
ham, and in a small and more succinct volume, based upon 
his work, by his daughter-in-law, Caroline E. Upham. 

The delusion, commonly spoken of as if it belonged to 



20 THE BROOMSTICK TRAIN 

Salem, was more widely diffused through the towns of Es- 
sex County. Looking upon it as a pitiful and long dead 
and buried superstition, I trust my poem will no more of- 
fend the good people of Essex County than Tarn O'Shan- 
ter worries the honest folk of Ayrshire. 

The localities referred to are those with which I am fami- 
liar in my drives about Essex County. 

LOOK out ! Look out, boys ! Clear the track ! 
The witches are here ! They 've all come 

back! 
They hanged them high, — No use ! No use ! 
What cares a witch for a hangman's noose ? 
They buried them deep, but they wouldn't lie 

still, 
For cats and witches are hard to kill ; 
They swore they should n't and would n't die, — 
Books said they did, but they lie ! they lie ! 

A couple of hundred years, or so, 

They had knocked about in the world below. 

When an Essex Deacon dropped in to call, 

And a homesick feeling seized them all ; 

For he came from a place they knew full well, 

And many a tale he had to tell. 

They longed to visit the haunts of men, 

To see the old dwellings they knew again, 

And ride on their broomsticks all around 

Their wide domain of unhallowed ground. 

In Essex County there 's many a roof 

Well known to him of the cloven hoof ; 

The small square windows are full in view 

Which the midnight hags went sailing through, 



THE BROOMSTICK TRAIN 21 

On their well-trained broomsticks mounted high, 
Seen like shadows against the sky ; 
Crossing the track of owls and bats, 
Hugging before them their coal-black cats. 

Well did they know, those gray old wives, 

The sights we see in our daily drives : 

Shimmer of lake and shine of sea, 

Browne's bare hill with its lonely tree, 

(It was n't then as we see it now, 

With one scant scalp-lock to shade its brow ;) 

Dusky nooks in the Essex woods, 

Dark, dim, Dante-like solitudes, 

Where the tree-toad watches the sinuous snake 

Glide through his forests of fern and brake ; 

Ipswich River ; its old stone bridge ; 

Far off Andover's Indian Ridge, 

And many a scene where history tells 

Some shadow of bygone terror dwells, — 

Of " Norman's Woe " with its tale of dread, 

Of the Screeching Woman of Marblehead, 

(The fearful story that turns men pale : 

Don't bid me tell it, — my speech would fail.) 

Who would not, will not, if he can, 
Bathe in the breezes of fair Cape Ann, — 
Rest in the bowers her bays enfold, 
Loved by the sachems and squaws of old ? 
Home where the white magnolias bloom, 
Sweet with the bayberry's chaste perfume, 
Hugged by the woods and kissed by the sea ! 
Where is the Eden like to thee ? 



22 THE BROOMSTICK TRAIN 

For that " couple of hundred years, or so," 
There had been no peace in the world below ; 
The witches still grumbling, " It isn't fair; 
Come, give us a taste of the upper air ! 
We Ve had enough of your sulphur springs, 
And the evil odor that round them clings ; 
We long for a drink that is cool and nice, — 
Great buckets of water with Wenham ice ; 
We 've served you well up-stairs, you know, 
You 're a good old — fellow — come, let us go ! " 

I don't feel sure of his being good, 
But he happened to be in a pleasant mood, — 
As fiends with their skins full sometimes are, — 
(He 'd been drinking with " roughs " at a Boston 

bar.) 
So what does he do but up and shout 
To a graybeard turnkey, " Let 'em out ! " 

To mind his orders was all he knew ; 

The gates swung open, and out they flew. 

" Where are our broomsticks ? " the beldams cried. 

" Here are your broomsticks," an imp replied. 

" They 've been in — the place you know — so long 

They smell of brimstone uncommon strong ; 

But they 've gained by being left alone, — 

Just look, and you '11 see how tall they 've grown." 

" And where is my cat ? " a vixen squalled. 

" Yes, where are our cats ? " the witches bawled, 

And began to call them all by name : 

As fast as they called the cats, they came : 

There was bob-tailed Tommy and long-tailed Tim, 



THE BROOMSTICK TRAIN 23 

And wall-eyed Jacky and green-eyed Jim, 

And splay-foot Benny and slim-legged Bean, 

And Skinny and Squally, and Jerry and Joe, 

And many another that came at call, — 

It would take too long to count them all. 

All black, — one could hardly tell which was 

which, 
But every cat knew his own old witch ; 
And she knew hers as hers knew her, — 
Ah, did n't they curl their tails and purr ! 

No sooner the withered hags were free 

Than out they swarmed for a midnight spree ; 

I could n't tell all they did in rhymes, 

But the Essex people had dreadful times. 

The Swampscott fishermen still relate 

How a strange sea-monster stole their bait ; 

How their nets were tangled in loops and knots, 

And they found dead crabs in their lobster-pots. 

Poor Danvers grieved for her blasted crops, 

And Wilmington mourned over mildewed hops. 

A blight played havoc with Beverly beans, — 

It was all the work of those hateful queans ! 

A dreadful panic began at " Pride's," 

Where the witches stopped in their midnight rides, 

And there rose strange rumors and vague alarms 

'Mid the peaceful dwellers at Beverly Farms. 

Now when the Boss of the Beldams found 
That without his leave they were ramping round, 
He called, — they could hear him twenty miles, 
From Chelsea beach to the Misery Isles ; 



24 THE BROOMSTICK TRAIN 

The deafest old granny knew his tone 

Without the trick of the telephone. 
" Come here, you witches ! Come here ! " says he, — 
" At your games of old, without asking me ! 

1 11 give you a little job to do 

That will keep you stirring, you godless crew 1 " 

They came, of course, at their master's call, 
The witches, the broomsticks, the cats, and all ; 
He led the hags to a railway train 
The horses were trying to drag in vain. 
" Now, then," says he, " you Ve had your fun, 
And here are the cars you Ve got to run. 
The driver may just unhitch his team, 
We don't want horses, we don't want steam ; 
You may keep your old black cats to hug, 
But the loaded train you 've got to lug." 

Since then on many a car you '11 see 

A broomstick plain as plain can be ; 

On every stick there 's a witch astride, — 

The string you see to her leg is tied. 

She will do a mischief if she can, 

But the string is held by a careful man, 

And whenever the evil-minded witch 

Would cut some caper, he gives a twitch. 

As for the hag, you can't see her, 

But hark ! you can hear her black cat's purr, 

And now and then, as a car goes by, 

You may catch a gleam from her wicked eye. 

Often you 've looked on a rushing train, 

But just what moved it was not so plain. 






MY AUNT 25 

It could n't be those wires above, 
For they could neither pull nor shove ; 
Where was the motor that made it go 
You could n't guess, but now you know. 

Remember my rhymes when you ride again 
On the rattling rail by the broomstick train I 

MY AUNT 

MY aunt ! my dear unmarried aunt ! 
Long years have o'er her flown ; 
Yet still she strains the aching clasp 

That binds her virgin zone ; 
I know it hurts her, — though she looks 

As cheerful as she can ; 
Her waist is ampler than her life, 
For life is but a span. 

My aunt ! my poor deluded aunt ! 

Her hair is almost gray ; 
Why will she train that winter curl 

In such a spring-like way ? 
How can she lay her glasses down, 

And say she reads as well, 
When through a double convex lens 

She just makes out to spell? 

Her father — grandpapa ! forgive 

This erring lip its smiles — 
Vowed she should make the finest girl 

Within a hundred miles ; 



26 MY AUNT 

He sent her to a stylish school ; 

'T was in her thirteenth June ; 
And with her, as the rules required, 

" Two towels and a spoon." 

They braced my aunt against a board, 

To make her straight and tall ; 
They laced her up, they starved her down, 

To make her light and small ; 
They pinched her feet, they singed her hair, 

They screwed it up with pins ; — 
O never mortal suffered more 

In penance for her sins. 

So, when my precious aunt was done, 
My grandsire brought her back ; 
(By daylight, lest some rabid youth 
Might follow on the track ;) 
" Ah ! " said my grandsire, as he shook 

Some powder in his pan, 
" What could this lovely creature do 
Against a desperate man ! " 

Alas ! nor chariot, nor barouche, 

Nor bandit cavalcade, 
Tore from the trembling father's arms 

His all-accomplished maid. 
For her how happy had it been ! 

And Heaven had spared to me 
To see one sad, ungathered rose 

On my ancestral tree. 



THE DORCHESTER GIANT 27 

THE DORCHESTER GIANT 

The "pudding-stone " is a remarkable conglomerate 
found very abundantly in the towns mentioned, all of 
which are in the neighborhood of Boston. We used in 
those primitive days to ask friends to ride with us when 
we meant to take them to drive with us. 

[It is interesting to see how the same subject presented 
itself to the poet in different moods. There is a passage in 
The Professor at the Breakfast- Table which begins, "I 
wonder whether the boys who live in Roxbury and Dor- 
chester are ever moved to tears or filled with silent awe as 
they look upon the rocks and fragments of •' pudding-stone * 
abounding in those localities." Then follows a half page of 
eloquent speculation on the pudding-stone.] 

THERE was a giant in time of old, 
A mighty one was he. 
He had a wife, but she was a scold, 
So he kept her shut in his mammoth fold ; 
And he had children three. 

It happened to be an election day, 

And the giants were choosing a king ; 
The people were not democrats then, 
They did not talk of the rights of men, 
And all that sort of thing. 

Then the giant took his children three, 

And fastened them in the pen ; 
The children roared ; quoth the giant, " Be still ! " 
And Dorchester Heights and Milton Hill 

Rolled back the sound again. 



28 THE DORCHESTER GIANT 

Then he brought them a pudding stuffed with 
plums, 

As big as the State-House dome ; 
Quoth he, " There 's something for you to eat ; 
So stop your mouths with your 'lection treat, 

And wait till your dad comes home." 

So the giant pulled him a chestnut stout, 

And whittled the boughs away ; 
The boys and their mother set up a shout, 
Said he, " You 're in, and you can't get out, 

Bellow as loud as you may." 

Off he went, and he growled a tune 

As he strode the fields along ; 
'T is said a buffalo fainted away, 
And fell as cold as a lump of clay, 

When he heard the giant's song. 

But whether the story 's true or not, 

It is n't for me to show ; 
There 's many a thing that 's twice as queer 
In somebody's lectures that we hear, 

And those are true, you know. 



What are those lone ones doing now, 

The wife and the children sad ? 
Oh, they are in a terrible rout, 
Screaming and throwing their pudding about, 

Acting as they were mad. 



THE HEIGHT OF THE RIDICULOUS 29 

They flung it over to Roxbury hills, 

They flung it over the plain, 
And all over Milton and Dorchester too 
Great lumps of pudding the giants threw ; 

They tumbled as thick as rain. 



Giant and mammoth have passed away, 

For ages have floated by ; 
The suet is hard as a marrow-bone, 
And every plum is turned to a stone, 

But there the puddings lie. 

And if, some pleasant afternoon, 

You 11 ask me out to ride, 
The whole of the story I will tell, 
And you shall see where the puddings fell, 

And pay for the punch beside. 



THE HEIGHT OF THE RIDICULOUS 

I WROTE some lines once on a time 
In wondrous merry mood, 
And thought, as usual, men would say 
They were exceeding good. 

They were so queer, so very queer, 

I laughed as I would die ; 
Albeit, in the general way, 

A sober man am I. 



30 THE HEIGHT OF THE RIDICULOUS 

I called my servant, and he came ; 

How kind it was of him 
To mind a slender man like me, 

He of the mighty limb. 

" These to the printer," I exclaimed, 
And, in my humorous way, 
I added, (as a trifling jest,) 
" There '11 be the devil to pay." 

He took the paper, and I watched, 

And saw him peep within ; 
At the first line he read, his face 

Was all upon the grin. 

He read the next ; the grin grew broad, 

And shot from ear to ear ; 
He read the third ; a chuckling noise 

I now began to hear. 

The fourth ; he broke into a roar ; 

The fifth ; his waistband split ; 
The sixth ; he burst five buttons off, ' 

And tumbled in a fit. 

Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye, 
I watched that wretched man, 

And since, I never dare to write 
As funny as I can. 



THE SPECTRE PIG 31 

THE SPECTRE PIG 

A BALLAD 

IT was the stalwart butcher man, 
That knit his swarthy brow, 
And said the gentle Pig must die, 
And sealed it with a vow. 

And oh ! it was the gentle Pig 

Lay stretched upon the ground, 
And ah ! it was the cruel knife 

His little heart that found. 

They took him then, those wicked men, 

They trailed him all along : 
They put a stick between his lips, 

And through his heels a thong ; 

And round and round an oaken beam 

A hempen cord they flung, 
And, like a mighty pendulum, 

All solemnly he swung ! 

Now say thy prayers, thou sinful man, 

And think what thou hast done, 
And read thy catechism well, 

Thou bloody-minded one ; 

For if his sprite should walk by night, 

It better were for thee, 
That thou wert mouldering in the ground, 

Or bleaching in the sea. 



32 THE SPECTRE PIG 

It was the savage butcher then, 
That made a mock of sin, 

And swore a very wicked oath, 
He did not care a pin. 

It was the butcher's youngest son, — 
His voice was broke with sighs, 

And with his pocket-handkerchief 
He wiped his little eyes ; 

All young and ignorant was he, 

But innocent and mild, 
And, in his soft simplicity, 

Out spoke the tender child : — 

" Oh, father, father, list to me ; 
The Pig is deadly sick, 
And men have hung him by his heels, 
And fed him with a stick." 

It was the bloody butcher then, 
That laughed as he would die, 

Yet did he soothe the sorrowing child, 
And bid him not to cry ; — 

" Oh, Nathan, Nathan, what 's a Pig, 
That thou shouldst weep and wail ? 
Come, bear thee like a butcher's child, 
And thou shalt have his tail ! " 

It was the butcher's daughter then, 
So slender and so fair, 



THE SPECTRE PIG 33 

That sobbed as if her heart would break, 
And tore her yellow hair ; 

And thus she spoke in thrilling tone, — 
Fast fell the tear-drops big : — 
" Ah ! woe is me ! Alas ! Alas ! 

The Pig ! The Pig ! The Pig ! " 

Then did her wicked father's lips 

Make merry with her woe, 
And call her many a naughty name, 

Because she whimpered so. 

Ye need not weep, ye gentle ones, 

In vain your tears are shed, 
Ye cannot wash his crimson hand, 

Ye cannot soothe the dead. 

The bright sun folded on his breast 

His robes of rosy flame, 
And softly over all the west 

The shades of evening came. 

He slept, and troops of murdered Pigs 

Were busy with his dreams ; 
Loud rang their wild, unearthly shrieks, 

Wide yawned their mortal seams. 

The clock struck twelve ; the Dead hath heard ; 

He opened both his eyes, 
And sullenly he shook his tail 

To lash the feeding flies. 



34 THE SPECTRE PIG 

One quiver of the hempen cord, — 
One struggle and one bound, — 

With stiffened limb and leaden eye, 
The Pig was on the ground ! 

And straight towards the sleeper's house 

His fearful way he wended ; 
And hooting owl and hovering bat 

On midnight wing attended. 

Back flew the bolt, up rose the latch, 

And open swung the door, 
And little mincing feet were heard 

Pat, pat along the floor. 

Two hoofs upon the sanded floor, 

And two upon the bed ; 
And they are breathing side by side, 

The living and the dead ! 

" Now wake, now wake, thou butcher man ! 
What makes thy cheek so pale ? 
Take hold ! take hold ! thou dost not fear 
To clasp a spectre's tail ? " 

Untwisted every winding coil ; 

The shuddering wretch took hold, 
All like an icicle it seemed, 

So tapering and so cold. 

" Thou com'st with me, thou butcher man ! " • 
He strives to loose his grasp, 



THE BALLAD OF THE OYSTERMAN 35 

But. faster than the clinging vine, 
Those twining spirals clasp : 

And open, open swung the door, 

And, fleeter than the wind, 
The shadowy spectre swept before, 

The butcher trailed behind. 

Fast fled the darkness of the night, 

And morn rose faint and dim ; 
They called full loud, they knocked full long, 

They did not waken him. 

Straight, straight towards that oaken beam, 

A trampled pathway ran ; 
A ghastly shape was swinging there, — 

It was the butcher man. 



THE BALLAD OF THE OYSTERMAN 

IT was a tall young oysterman lived by the river- 
side, 
His shop was just upon the bank, his boat was on 

the tide ; 
The daughter of a fisherman, that was so straight 

and slim, 
Lived over on the other bank, right opposite to him. 

It was the pensive oysterman that saw a lovely 

maid, 
Upon a moonlight evening, a-sitting in the shade ; 



36 THE BALLAD OF THE OYSTERMAN 

He saw her wave her handkerchief, as much as if 

to say, 
" I 'm wide awake, young oysterman, and all the 

folks away." 

Then up arose the oysterman, and to himself said 

he, 
" I guess I '11 leave the skiff at home, for fear that 

folks should see ; 
I read it in the story-book, that, for to kiss his 

dear, 
Leander swam the Hellespont, — and I will swim 

this here." 

And he has leaped into the waves, and crossed the 
shining stream, 

And he has clambered up the bank, all in the moon- 
light gleam ; 

Oh there were kisses sweet as dew, and words as 
soft as rain, — 

But they have heard her father's step, and in he 
leaps again ! 

Out spoke the ancient fisherman, — " Oh, what was 

that, my daughter ? " 
" 'T was nothing but a pebble, sir, I threw into the 

water." 
" And what is that, pray tell me, love, that paddles 

off so fast ? " 
" It 's nothing but a porpoise, sir, that 's been a- 

swimming past." 



THE HOT SEASON 37 

Out spoke the ancient fisherman, — " Now bring 
me my harpoon ! 

I'll get into my fishing-boat, and fix the fellow 
soon." 

Down fell that pretty innocent, as falls a snow- 
white lamb, 

Her hair drooped round her pallid cheeks, like sea- 
weed on a clam. 

Alas for those two loving ones ! she waked not from 

her swound, 
And he was taken with the cramp, and in the 

waves was drowned ; 
But Fate has metamorphosed them, in pity of their 

woe, 
And now they keep an oyster-shop for mermaids 

down below. 



THE HOT SEASON 

THE folks, that on the first of May 
Wore winter coats and hose, 
Began to say, the first of June, 

" Good Lord ! how hot it grows ! " 
At last two Fahrenheits blew up, 
And killed two children small, 
And one barometer shot dead 
A tutor with its ball ! 

Now all day long the locusts sang 
Among the leafless trees ; 



38 THE HOT SEASON 

Three new hotels warped inside out, 
The pumps could only wheeze ; 

And ripe old wine, that twenty years 
Had cobwebbed o'er in vain, 

Came spouting through the rotten corks 
Like Joly's best champagne ! 

The Worcester locomotives did 

Their trip in half an hour ; 
The Lowell cars ran forty miles 

Before they checked the power ; 
Roll brimstone soon became a drug, 

And loco-f ocos fell ; 
All asked for ice, but everywhere 

Saltpetre was to sell. 

Plump men of mornings ordered tights, 

But, ere the scorching noons, 
Their candle-moulds had grown as loose 

As Cossack pantaloons ! 
The dogs ran mad, — men could not try 

If water they would choose ; 
A horse fell dead, — he only left 

Four red-hot, rusty shoes ! 

But soon the people could not bear 

The slightest hint of fire; 
Allusions to caloric drew 

A flood of savage ire ; 
The leaves on heat were all torn out 

From every book at school, 
And many blackguards kicked and caned, 

Because they said, " Keep cool J " 



THE STETHOSCOPE SONG 39 

TI13 gas-light companies were mobbed, 

The bakers all were shot, 
The penny press began to talk 

Of lynching Doctor Nott ; 
And all about the warehouse steps 

Were angry men in droves, 
Crashing and splintering through the doors 

To smash the patent stoves ! 

The abolition men and maids 

Were tanned to such a hue, 
You scarce could tell them from their friends, 

Unless their eyes were blue ; 
And, when I left, society 

Had burst its ancient guards, 
And Brattle Street and Temple Place 

Were interchanging cards ! 



THE STETHOSCOPE SONG 

A PROFESSIONAL BALLAD 

THERE was a young man in Boston town, 
He bought him a stethoscope nice and new, 
All mounted and finished and polished down, 
With an ivory cap and a stopper too. 

It happened a spider within did crawl, 
And spun him a web of ample size, 

Wherein there chanced one day to fall 
A couple of very imprudent flies. 



40 THE STETHOSCOPE SONG 

The first was a bottle-fly, big and blue, 

The second was smaller, and thin and long; 

So there was a concert between the two, 
Like an octave flute and a tavern gong. 

Now being from Paris but recently, 

This fine young man would show his skill ; 

And so they gave him, his hand to try, 
A hospital patient extremely ill. 

Some said that his liver was short of bile, 
And some that his heart was over size, 

While some kept arguing, all the while, 

He was crammed with tubercles up to his eyes. 

This fine young man then up stepped he, 
And all the doctors made a pause ; 

Said he, The man must die, you see, 
By the fifty-seventh of Louis's laws. 

But since the case is a desperate one, 
To explore his chest it may be well ; 

For if he should die and it were not done, 
You know the autopsy would not tell. 

Then out his stethoscope he took, 

And on it placed his curious ear ; 
Mon Dieu ! said he, with a knowing look, 

Why, here is a sound that 's mighty queer ! 

The bourdonnement is very clear, — 
Amphoric buzzing, as I 'm alive ! 



THE STETHOSCOPE SONG 41 

Five doctors took their turn to hear ; 
Amphoric buzzing, said all the five. 

There 's empyema beyond a doubt ; 

"We '11 plunge a trocar in his side. 
The diagnosis was made out, — 

They tapped the patient ; so he died. 

Now such as hate new-fashioned toys 

Began to look extremely glum ; 
They said that rattles were made for boys, 

And vowed that his buzzing was all a hum. 

There was an old lady had long been sick 
And what was the matter none did know : 

Her pulse was slow, though her tongue was quick ; 
To her this knowing youth must go. 

So there the nice old lady sat, 
With phials and boxes all in a row ; 

She asked the young doctor what he was at, 
To thump her and tumble her ruffles so. 

Now, when the stethoscope came out, 

The flies began to buzz and whiz : 
Oh, ho ! the matter is clear, no doubt; 

An aneurism there plainly is. 

The bruit de rape and the bruit de scie 
And the bruit de diable are all combined ; 

How happy Bouillaud would be, 
If he a case like this could find ! 



42 THE STETHOSCOPE SONG 

Now, when the neighboring doctors found 

A case so rare had been descried, 
They every day her ribs did pound 

In squads of twenty ; so she died. 

Then six young damsels, slight and frail, 
Received this kind young doctor's cares ; 

They all were getting slim and pale, 
And short of breath on mounting stairs. 

They all made rhymes with " sighs " and " skies," 
And loathed their puddings and buttered rolls, 

And dieted, much to their friends' surprise, 
On pickles and pencils and chalk and coals. 

So fast their little hearts did bound, 

The frightened insects buzzed the more ; 

So over all their chests he found 
The rale sifflant and the rale sonore. 

He shook his head. There 's grave disease, — 

I greatly fear you all must die ; 
A slight post-mortem, if you please, 

Surviving friends would gratify. 

The six young damsels wept aloud, 
Which so prevailed on six young men 

That each his honest love avowed, 
Whereat they all got well again. 

This poor young man was all aghast ; 
The price of stethoscopes came down ; 



BILL AND JOE 43 

And so he was reduced at last 
To practise in a country town. 

The doctors being very sore, 

A stethoscope they did devise 
That had a rammer to clear the bore, 

With a knob at the end to kill the flies. 

Now use your ears, all you that can, 
But don't forget to mind your eyes, 

Or you may be cheated, like this young man, 
By a couple of silly, abnormal flies. 



BILL AND JOE 

COME, dear old comrade, you and I 
Will steal an hour from days gone by, 
The shining days when life was new, 
And all was bright with morning dew, 
The lusty days of long ago, 
When you were Bill and I was Joe. 

Your name may flaunt a titled trail 
Proud as a cockerel's rainbow tail, 
And mine as brief appendix wear 
As Tarn O'Shanter's luckless mare ; 
To-day, old friend, remember still 
That I am Joe and you are Bill. 

You 've won the great world's envied prize, 
And grand you look in people's eyes, 



44 BILL AND JOE 

With HON. and L L. D. 

In big brave letters, fair to see, — 
Your fist, old fellow ! off they go ! — 
How are you, Bill ? How are you, Joe ? 

You 've worn the judge's ermined robe ; 
You Ve taught your name to half the globe ; 
You 've sung mankind a deathless strain ; 
You 've made the dead past live again : 
The world may call you what it will, 
But you and I are Joe and Bill. 

The chaffing young folks stare and say 
" See those old buffers, bent and gray, — 
They talk like fellows in their teens ! 
Mad, poor old boys ! That 's what it means," - 
And shake their heads ; they little know 
The throbbing hearts of Bill and Joe ! — 

How Bill forgets his hour of pride, 
While Joe sits smiling at his side ; 
How Joe, in spite of time's disguise, 
Finds the old schoolmate in his eyes, — 
Those calm, stern eyes that melt and fill 
As Joe looks fondly up at Bill. 

Ah, pensive scholar, what is fame ? 

A fitful tongue of leaping flame ; 

A giddy whirlwind's fickle gust, 

That lifts a pinch of mortal dust ; 

A few swift years, and who can show 

Which dust was Bill and which was Joe ? 



LATTER-DAY WARNINGS 45 

The weary idol takes his stand, 

Holds out his bruised and aching hand, 

While gaping thousands come and go, — 

How vain it seems, this empty show ! 

Till all at once his pulses thrill ; — 

'T is poor old Joe's " God bless you, Bill 1 " 

And shall we breathe in happier spheres 
The names that pleased our mortal ears ; 
In some sweet lull of harp and song 
For earth-born spirits none too long, 
Just whispering of the world below 
Where this was Bill and that was Joe ? 

No matter ; while our home is here 
No sounding name is half so dear ; 
When fades at length our lingering day, 
Who cares what pompous tombstones say ? 
Read on the hearts that love us still, 
Hie Jacet Joe. Hie Jacet Bill. 



LATTER-DAY WARNINGS 

I should have felt more nervous about the late comet, if 
I had thought the world was ripe. But it is very green yet, 
if I am not mistaken ; and besides, there is a great deal of 
coal to use up, which I cannot bring myself to think was 
made for nothing. If certain things, which seem to me 
essential to a millennium, had come to pass, I should have 
been frightened ; but they have n't. [When those verses 
were written, Dr. Holmes was as incredulous as his neigh- 
bors over the completion of the Hoosac Tunnel; but he 
never withdrew the lines.] 



46 LATTER-DAY WARNINGS 

WHEN legislators keep the law, 
When banks dispense with bolts and locks, 
When berries — whortle, rasp, and straw — 
Grow bigger downwards throngh the box, — 

When he that selleth house or land 
Shows leak in roof or flaw in right, — 

When haberdashers choose the stand 

Whose window hath the broadest light, — 

When preachers tell us all they think, 
And party leaders all they mean, — 

When what we pay for, that we drink, 
From real grape and coffee-bean, — 

When lawyers take what they would give, 
And doctors give what they would take, — 

When city fathers eat to live, 

Save when they fast for conscience' sake, — 

When one that hath a horse on sale 

Shall bring his merit to the proof, 
Without a lie for every nail 

That holds the iron on the hoof, — 

When in the usual place for rips 

Our gloves are stitched with special care, 

And guarded well the whalebone tips 
Where first umbrellas need repair, — 

When Cuba's weeds have quite forgot 
The power of suction to resist, 



CONTENTMENT 47 

And claret-bottles harbor not 
Such dimples as would hold your fist, — 

When publishers no longer steal, 

And pay for what they stole before, — 

When the first locomotive's wheel 

Rolls through the Hoosac Tunnel's bore ; — 

Till then let Cumming blaze away, 
And Miller's saints blow up the globe ; 

But when you see that blessed day, 
Then order your ascension robe ! 

CONTENTMENT 

" Man wants but little here below.'* 

Should you like to hear what moderate wishes life brings 
one to at last ? I used to be very ambitious, — wasteful, 
extravagant, and luxurious in all my fancies. Eead too 
much in the Arabian Nights. Must have the lamp, — 
couldn't do without the ring. Exercise every morning on 
the brazen horse. Plump down into castles as full of little 
milk-white princesses as a nest is of young sparrows. All 
love me dearly at once. — Charming idea of life, but too 
high-colored for the reality. I have outgrown all this ; my 
tastes have become exceedingly primitive, — almost, per- 
haps, ascetic. We carry happiness into our condition, but 
must not hope to find it there. I think you will be willing 
to hear some lines which embody the subdued and limited 
desires of my maturity. 

LITTLE I ask ; my wants are few ; 
I only wish a hut of stone, 
(A very plain brown stone will do,) 



48 CONTENTMENT 

That I may call my own ; — 
And close at hand is such a one, 
In yonder street that fronts the sun. 

Plain food is quite enough for me ; 

Three courses are as good as ten ; — 
If Nature can subsist on three, 

Thank Heaven for three. Amen ! 
I always thought cold victual nice ; — 
My choice would be vanilla- ice. 

I care not much for gold or land ; — 
Give me a mortgage here and there, — 

Some good bank-stock, some note of hand, 
Or trifling railroad share, — 

I only ask that Fortune send 

A little more than I shall spend. 

Honors are silly toys, I know, 
And titles are but empty names ; 

I would, perhaps, be Plenipo, — 
But only near St. James ; 

I 'm very sure I should not care 

To fill our Gubernator's chair. 

Jewels are baubles ; 't is a sin 

To care for such unfruitful things ; — 

One good-sized diamond in a pin, — 
Some, not so large, in rings, — 

A ruby, and a pearl, or so, 

Will do for me ; — I laugh at show. 



CONTENTMENT 

My dame should dress in cheap attire ; 

(Good, heavy silks are never dear ;) — 
I own perhaps I might desire 

Some shawls of true Cashmere, — 
Some marrowy crapes of China silk, 
Like wrinkled skins on scalded milk. 

I would not have the horse I drive 

So fast that folks must stop and stare ; 

An easy gait — two forty-five — 
Suits me ; I do not care ; — 

Perhaps, for just a single spurt, 

Some seconds less would do no hurt. 

Of pictures, I should like to own 

Titians and Raphaels three or four, — 

I love so much their style and tone, 
One Turner, and no more, 

(A landscape, — foreground golden dirt, — 

The sunshine painted with a squirt.) 

Of books but few, — some fifty score 
For daily use, and bound for wear ; 

The rest upon an upper floor ; — 
Some little luxury there 

Of red morocco's gilded gleam 

And vellum rich as country cream. 

Busts, cameos, gems, — such things as these, 
Which others often show for pride, 

/ value for their power to please, 
And selfish churls deride ; — 



50 DE SAUTY 

One Stradivarius, I confess, 

Two Meerschaums, I would fain possess. 

Wealth's wasteful tricks I will not learn, 
Nor ape the glittering upstart fool ; — 

Shall not carved tables serve my turn, 
But all must be of buhl ? 

Give grasping pomp its double share, — 

I ask but one recumbent chair. 

Thus humble let me live and die, 
Nor long for Midas' golden touch ; 

If Heaven more generous gifts deny, 
I shall not miss them much, — 

Too grateful for the blessing lent 

Of simple tastes and mind content ! 



DE SAUTY 

AN ELECTRO-CHEMICAL ECLOGUE 

The first messages received through the submarine cable 
were sent by an electrical expert, a mysterious personage 
who signed himself De Sauty. 

Professor Blue-Nose 

PROFESSOR 

TELL me, O Provincial ! speak, Ceruleo-Nasal ! 
Lives there one De Sauty extant now among 
you, 
Whispering Boanerges, son of silent thunder, 
Holding talk with nations ? 



DE SAUTY 51 

Is there a De Sauty ambulant on Tellus, 
Bifid-cleft like mortals, dormient in nightcap, 
Having sight, smell, hearing, food-receiving feature 
Three times daily patent ? 

Breathes there such a being, O Ceruleo-Nasal ? 
Or is he a mythus, — ancient word for " hum- 
bug," - 
Such as Livy told about the wolf that wet-nursed 
Romulus and Remus ? 

Vv T as he born of woman, this alleged De Sauty? 
Or a living product of galvanic action, 
Like the acarus bred in Crosse's flint-solution ? 
Speak, thou Cyano-Rhinal ! 

BLUE-NOSE 

Many things thou askest, jackknife-bearing stran- 
ger, 

Much-conjecturing mortal, pork-and-treacle waster ! 

Pretermit thy whittling, wheel thine ear-flap to- 
ward me, 
Thou shalt hear them answered. 

When the charge galvanic tingled through the 

cable, 
At the polar focus of the wire electric 
Suddenly appeared a white-faced man among us : 
Called himself " De Sauty." 

As the small opossum held in pouch maternal 
Grasps the nutrient organ whence the term mam- 
malia, 



52 DE SAUTY 

So the unknown stranger held the wire electric, 
Sucking in the current. 

When the current strengthened, bloomed the pale- 
faced stranger, — 
Took no drink nor victual, yet grew fat and rosy, — 
And from time to time, in sharp articulation, 
Said, " All right! De Sauty." 

From the lonely station passed the utterance, 

spreading 
Through the pines and hemlocks to the groves of 

steeples, 
Till the land was filled with loud reverberations 
Of " All right ! De Sauty." 

When the current slackened, drooped the mystic 

stranger, — 
Faded, faded, faded, as the stream grew weaker, — 
Wasted to a shadow, with a hartshorn odor 
Of disintegration. 

Drops of deliquescence glistened on his fore- 
head, 
Whitened round his feet the dust of efflorescence, 
Till one Monday morning, when the flow sus- 
pended, 
There was no De Sauty. 

Nothing but a cloud of elements organic, 
C. O. H. N". Ferrum, Chlor. Flu. Sil. Potassa, 



ODE FOR A SOCIAL MEETING 53 

Calc. Sod. Phosph. Mag. Sulphur, Mang. (?) 
Alumin. (?) Cuprum, (?) 
Such as man is made of. 

Born of stream galvanic, with it he had perished ! 
There is no De Sauty now there is no current ! 
Give us a new cable, then again we 11 hear him 
Cry, " All right ! De Sauty." 



ODE FOR A SOCIAL MEETING 

WITH SLIGHT ALTERATIONS BY A TEETOTALER 

Here is a little poem I sent a short time since to a com- 
mittee for a certain celebration. I understood that it was 
to be a festive and convivial occasion, and ordered myself 
accordingly. It seems the president of the day was what 
is called a " teetotaler." I received a note from him in the 
following words, containing the copy subjoined, with the 
emendations annexed to it. 

"Dear Sir, — Your poem gives good satisfaction to the 
committee. The sentiments expressed with reference to 
liquor are not, however, those generally entertained by this 
community. I have therefore consulted the clergyman of 
this place, who has made some slight changes, which he 
thinks will remove all objections, and keep the valuable 
portions of the poem. Please to inform me of your charge 
for said poem. Our means are limited, etc., etc., etc. 

"Yours with respect." 

Here it is with the slight alterations. 

COME ! fill a fresh bumper, for why should we 
go 

logwood 

While the - nectar still reddens our cups as they 
flow? 



54 THE ARCHBISHOP AND GIL BLAS 

decoction 

Pour out the rich juicos still bright with the sun, 

dye-stuff 

Till o'er the brimmed crystal the rubies shall, run. 

half-ripened apples ~ _- 

The purple - globed clusters^ their life-dews have 
bled; 

taste sugar of lead. 

How sweet is the breath, of the fragrance they 
shed 1 

rank poisons _ wines ! ! 1 

For summer's last roses lie hid in the wines 

stable-boys smoking 

That "were garnered by maidens who laughed \ 

, long-nines. 

thro' the vino3. 



scowl howl scoff sneer, 

Then a smile, and a glass, and a toast, and a cheer, 

strychnine and whiskey, and ratsbane and beer ! 

For all the good wino, and wo vo some of it hero I « 
In cellar, in pantry, in attic, in hall, 

Down, down with the tyrant that masters us all ! 

Long live the gay servant that laughs for u s all 1 



THE ARCHBISHOP AND GIL BLAS 

A JftOEnEKXIZED VERSION 
18T9 

I DON'T think I feel much older; I'm aware 
I 'm rather gray, 
But so are many young folks; I meet 'em every 
day. 



THE ARCHBISHOP AND GIL BLAS 55 

I confess I 'm more particular in what I eat and 

drink, 
But one's taste improves with culture ; that is all 

it means, I think. 

Can you read as once you used to ? Well, the print- 
ing is so bad, 

No young folks' eyes can read it like the books that 
once we had. 

Are you quite as quick of hearing? Please to say 
that once again. 

Don't I use plain words, your Reverence? Yes, I 
often use a cane, 

But it 's not because I need it, — no, I always liked 

a stick ; 
And as one might lean upon it, 't is as well it should 

be thick. 
Oh, I 'm smart, I 'm spry, I 'm lively, — I can walk, 

yes, that I can, 
On the days I feel like walking, just as well as you, 

young man ! 

Don't you get a little sleepy after dinner every day ? 
Well, I doze a little, sometimes, but that always 

was my way. 
Don't you cry a little easier than some twenty years 

ago? 
Well, my heart is very tender, but I think 't was 

always so. 

Don't you find it sometimes happens that you can't re- 
call a name ? 



56 THE ARCHBISHOP AND GIL BIAS 

Yes, I know such lots of people, — but my mem- 
ory's not to blame. 

What ! You think my memory 's failing ? Why, 
it 's just as bright and clear, — 

I remember my great-grandma ! She 's been dead 
these sixty year ! 

Is your voice a little trembly f Well, it may be, now 

and then, 
But I write as well as ever with a good old-fashioned 

pen; 
It 's the Gillotts make the trouble, — not at all my 

finger-ends, — 
That is why my hand looks shaky when I sign for 

dividends. 

Don't you stoop a little, walking ? It 's a way I Ve 

always had, 
I have always been round-shouldered, ever since I 

was a lad. 
Don't you hate to tie your shoe-strings ? Yes, I own 

it — that is true. 
Don't you tell old stories over ? I am not aware I do. 

Don't you stay at home of evenings ? Don't you love 
a cushioned seat 

In a corner, by the fireside, with your slippers on your 
feet ? 

Don't you wear warm fleecy ^flannels ? Don't you 
muffle up your throat f 

Don't you like to have one help you when you 're put- 
ting on your coat f 



THE ARCHBISHOP AND GIL BLAS 57 

Don't you like old hooks you 've dogs-eared, you can't 

remember when ? 
Don't you call it late at nine o'clock and go to bed at 

ten ? 
How many cronies can you count of all you used to 

know 
Who called you by your Christian name some Jifty 

years ago ? 

How look the prizes to you that used to fire your brain f 
You 've reared your mound — how high is it above the 

level plain f 
You 've drained the brimming golden cup that made 

your fancy reel, 
You 've slept the giddy potion off, — now tell us how 

you feel ! 

You 've watched the harvest ripening till every stem 

was cropped, 
You 've seen the rose of beauty fade tilV every petal 

dropped, 
You 've told your thought, you 've done your task, 

you 've tracked your dial round, 
— I backing down ! Thank Heaven, not yet ! I 'm 

hale and brisk and sound, 

And good for many a tussle, as you shall live to see ; 
My shoes are not quite ready yet, — don't think 

you 're rid of me ! 
Old Parr was in his lusty prime when he was older 

far, 
And where will you be if I live to beat old Thomas 

Parr? 



58 OLD CAMBRIDGE 

Ah well, — i" know, — at every age life has a certain 

charm, — 
You 're going ? Come, permit me, please, I beg you '11 

take my arm. 
I take your arm ! Why take your arm ? I 'd thank 

you to be told 
I 'm old enough to walk alone, but not so very old ! 

OLD CAMBRIDGE 

JULY 3, 1875 

[Upon the occasion of the Centennial celebration of Wash- 
ington taking command of the American army. It was on 
this occasion that Lowell read his ode, Under the Old Elm.] 

AND can it be you 've found a place 
Jljl. Within this consecrated space, 

That makes so fine a show, 
For one of Rip Van Winkle's race ? 

And is it really so ? 
Who wants an old receipted bill ? 
Who fishes in the Frog-pond still ? — 
Who digs last year's potato hill ? 

That 's what he 'd like to know ! 

And were it any spot on earth 

Save this dear home that gave him birth 

Some scores of years ago, 
He had not come to spoil your mirth 

And chill your festive glow ; 
But round his baby-nest he strays, 
With tearful eye the scene surveys, 



OLD CAMBRIDGE 59 

His heart unchanged by changing days, — 
That 's what he 'd have you know. 

Can you whose eyes not yet are dim 
Live o'er the buried past with him, 

And see the roses blow 
When white-haired men were Joe and Jim 

Untouched by winter's snow ? 
Or roll the years back one by one 
As Judah's monarch backed the sun, 
And see the century just begun ? — 

That 's what he 'd like to know ! 

I come, but as the swallow dips, 
Just touching with her feather-tips 

The shining wave below, 
To sit with pleasure-murmuring lips 

And listen to the flow 
Of Elmwood's sparkling Hippocrene, 
To tread once more my native green, 
To sigh unheard, to smile unseen, — 

That 's what I 'd have you know. 

But since the common lot I 've shared 
(We all are sitting " unprepared/' 

Like culprits in a row, 
Whose heads are down, whose necks are bared 

To wait the headsman's blow), 
I 'd like to shift my task to you, 
By asking just a thing or two 
About the good old times I knew, — 

Here 's what I want to know : 



60 OLD CAMBRIDGE 

The yellow meetin' house — can you tell 
Just where it stood before it fell 

Prey of the vandal foe, — 
Our dear old temple, loved so well, 

By ruthless hands laid low ? 
Where, tell me, was the Deacon's pew ? 
Whose hair was braided in a queue? 
(For there were pig-tails not a few,) — 

That 's what I 'd like to know. 

The bell — can you recall its clang ? 
And how the seats would slam and bang ? 

The voices high and low ? 
The basso's trump before he sang ? 

The viol and its bow ? 
Where was it old Judge Winthrop sat ? 
Who wore the last three-cornered hat ? 
Was Israel Porter lean or fat ? — 

That 's what I 'd like to know. 

Tell where the market used to be 
That stood beside the murdered tree ? 

Whose dog to church would go? 
Old Marcus Reemie, who was he ? 

Who were the brothers Snow ? 
Does not your memory slightly fail 
About that great September gale ? — 
Whereof one told a moving tale, 

As Cambridge boys should know. 

When Cambridge was a simple town, 
Say just when Deacon William Brown 
(Last door in yonder row), 



OLD CAMBRIDGE 61 

For honest silver counted down, 

His groceries would bestow ? — 
For those were days when money meant 
Something that jingled as you went, — 
No hybrid like the nickel cent, 

I 'd have you all to know, 

But quarter, ninepence, pistareen, 
And four pence hapennies in between, 

All metal fit to show, 
Instead of rags in stagnant green, 

The scum of debts we owe ; 
How sad to think such stuff should be 
Our Wendell's cure-all recipe, — 
Not Wendell H., but Wendell P., — 

The one you all must know ! 

I question — but you answer not — 
Dear me ! and have I quite forgot 

How fivescore years ago, 
Just on this very blessed spot, 

The summer leaves below, 
Before his homespun ranks arrayed 
In green New England's elm-bough shade 
The great Virginian drew the blade 

King George full soon should know ! 

O George the Third ! you found it true 
Our George was more than double you, 

For nature made him so. 
Not much an empire's crown can do 

If brains are scant and slow, — 



62 EPILOGUE 

Ah, not like that his laurel crown 
Whose presence gilded with renown 
Our brave old Academic town, 
As all her children know ! 

So here we meet with loud acclaim 
To tell mankind that here he came, 

With hearts that throb and glow ; 
Ours is a portion of his fame 

Our trumpets needs must blow ! 
On yonder hill the Lion fell, 
But here was chipped the eagle's shell, ■ 
That little hatchet did it well, 

As all the world shall know ! 



EPILOGUE TO THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 
SERIES 

AUTOCRAT — PROFESSOR — POET 
AT A BOOKSTORE 

Anno Domini 1972 

A CRAZY bookcase, placed before 
A low-price dealer's open door ; 
Therein arrayed in broken rows 
A ragged crew of rhyme and prose, 
The homeless vagrants, waifs, and strays 
Whose low estate this line betrays 
(Set forth the lesser birds to lime) 
Your choice among these books 1 dime ! 



EPILOGUE 

Ho ! dealer ; for its motto's sake 

This scarecrow from the shelf I take ; 

Three starveling volumes bound in one, 

Its covers warping in the sun. 

Methinks it hath a musty smell, 

I like its flavor none too well, 

But Yorick's brain was far from dull, 

Though Hamlet pah ! 'd, and dropped his skull. 

Why, here comes rain ! The sky grows dark, — 

Was that the roll of thunder ? Hark ! 

The shop affords a safe retreat, 

A chair extends its welcome seat, 

The tradesman has a civil look 

(I 've paid, impromptu, for my book), 

The clouds portend a sudden shower, — 

1 '11 read my purchase for an hour. 

What have I rescued from the shelf ? 
A Boswell, writing out himself ! 
For though he changes dress and name, 
The man beneath is still the same, 
Laughing or sad, by fits and starts, 
One actor in a dozen parts, 
And whatsoe'er the mask may be, 
The voice assures us, This is he. 

I say not this to cry him down ; 
I find my Shakespeare in his clown, 
His rogues the selfsame parent own ; 
Nay ! Satan talks in Milton's tone ! 
Where'er the ocean inlet strays, 
The salt sea wave its force betrays ; 



64 EPILOGUE 

Where'er the queen of summer blows, 
She tells the zephyr, " I 'm the rose ! ' 

And his is not the playwright's page ; 
His table does not ape the stage ; 
What matter if the figures seen 
Are only shadows on a screen, 
He finds in them his lurking thought, 
And on their lips the words he sought, 
Like one who sits before the keys 
And plays a tune himself to please. 

And was he noted in his day ? 

Read, flattered, honored? Who shall say? 

Poor wreck of time the wave has cast 

To find a peaceful shore at last, 

Once glorying in thy gilded name 

And freighted deep with hopes of fame, 

Thy leaf is moistened with a tear, 

The first for many a long, long year ! 

For be it more or less of art 

That veils the lowliest human heart 

Where passion throbs, where friendship glows, 

Where pity's tender tribute flows, 

Where love has lit its fragrant fire, 

And sorrow quenched its vain desire, 

For me the altar is divine, 

Its flame, its ashes, — all are mine ! 

And thou, my brother, as I look 
And see thee pictured in thy book, 
Thy years on every page confessed 



THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS 65 

In shadows lengthening from the west, 
Thy glance that wanders, as it sought 
Some freshly opening flower of thought, 
Thy hopeful nature, light and free. 
I start to find myself in thee ! 

Come, vagrant, outcast, wretch forlorn 
In leather jerkin stained and torn, 
Whose talk has filled my idle hour 
And made me half forget the shower, 
I '11 do at least as much for you, 
Your coat I '11 patch, your gilt renew, 
Read you — perhaps — some other time. 
Not bad, my bargain ! Price one dime I 



THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS 

We need not trouble ourselves about the distinction be- 
tween this [the Pearly Nautilus] and the Paper Nautilus, 
the Argonauta of the ancients. The name applied to 
both shows that each has long been compared to a ship, 
as you may see more fully in Webster's Dictionary or the 
Encyclopedia, to which he refers. If you will look into 
Roget's Bridgewater Treatise jovl will find a figure of one 
of these shells and a section of it. The last will show you 
the series of enlarging compartments successively dwelt in 
by the animal that inhabits the shell, which is built in a 
widening spiral. [This poem seemed to share with Dorothy 
Q. Dr. Holmes's interest, if one may judge by the fre- 
quency with which he chose it for reading or for autograph 
albums. He says on receipt of an album from the Princess 
of Wales, "I copied into it the last verse of a poem of mine 
called The Chambered Nautilus, as I have often done for 
plain republican albums."] 



66 THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS 

THIS is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, 
Sails the unshadowed main, — 
The venturous bark that flings 
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings 
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings, 

And coral reefs lie bare, 
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their stream- 
ing hair. 

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl ; 

Wrecked is the ship of pearl ! 

And every chambered cell, 
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, 
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, 

Before thee lies revealed, — 
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed ! 

Year after year beheld the silent toil 

That spread his lustrous coil ; 

Still, as the spiral grew, 
He left the past year's dwelling for the new, 
Stole with soft step its shining archway through, 

Built up its idle door, 
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the 
old no more. 

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by 
thee, 

Child of the wandering sea, 

Cast from her lap, forlorn ! 
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born 
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn ! 



OLD IRONSIDES 67 

While on mine ear it rings, 
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice 
that sings : — 

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, 

As the swift seasons roll ! 

Leave thy low-vaulted past ! 
Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 

Till thou at length art free, 
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting 
sea! 

OLD IRONSIDES 

This was the popular name by which the frigate Consti- 
tution was known. The poem was first printed in the Bos- 
ton Daily Advertiser, at the time when it was proposed to 
break up the old ship as unfit for service. I subjoin the 
paragraph which led to the writing of the poem. It is from 
the Advertiser of Tuesday, September 14, 1830: — 

" Old Ironsides. — It has been affirmed upon good author- 
ity that the Secretary of the Navy has recommended to the 
Board of Navy Commissioners to dispose of the frigate Con- 
stitution. Since it has been understood that such a step 
was in contemplation we have heard but one opinion ex- 
pressed, and that in decided disapprobation of the measure. 
Such a national object of interest, so endeared to our na- 
tional pride as Old Ironsides is, should never by any act of 
our government cease to belong to the Navy, so long as our 
country is to be found upon the map of nations. In Eng- 
land it was lately determined by the Admiralty to cut the 
Victory, a one-hundred gun ship (which it will be recol- 
lected bore the flag of Lord Nelson at the battle of Trafal- 
gar), down to a seventy-four, but so loud were the lamenta- 



68 OLD IRONSIDES 

tions of the people upon the proposed measure that the in- 
tention was abandoned. We confidently anticipate that the 
Secretary of the Navy will in like manner consult the gen- 
eral wish in regard to the Constitution, and either let her 
remain in ordinary or rebuild her whenever the public ser- 
vice may require." — New York Journal of Commerce, 

The poem was an impromptu outburst of feeling and was 
published on the next day but one after reading the above 
paragraph. [When Poetry : a Metrical Essay was pub- 
lished this poem was introduced as an interlude at the close 
of the second section.] 

AY, tear her tattered ensign down ! 
X\- Long has it waved on high, 
And many an eye has danced to see 

That banner in the sky ; 
Beneath it rung the battle shout, 

And burst the cannon's roar ; — 
The meteor of the ocean air 

Shall sweep the clouds no more. 

Her deck, once red with heroes' blood, 

Where knelt the vanquished foe, 
When winds were hurrying o'er the flood 

And waves were white below, 
No more shall feel the victor's tread, 

Or know the conquered knee ; — 
The harpies of the shore shall pluck 

The eagle of the sea ! 

O, better that her shattered hulk 
Should sink beneath the wave ; 

Her thunders shook the mighty deep, 
And there should be her grave ; 



THE LAST LEAF 

Nail to the mast her holy flag, 
Set every threadbare sail, 

And give her to the god of storms, 
The lightning and the gale ! 



THE LAST LEAF 

The poem was suggested by the sight of a figure well 
known to Bostonians [in 1831 or 1832], that of Major 
Thomas Melville, "the last of the cocked hats," as he was 
sometimes called. The Major had been a personable young 
man, very evidently, and retained evidence of it in 

M The monumental pomp of age," — 

which had something imposing and something odd about it 
for youthful eyes like mine. He was often pointed at as 
one of the " Indians " of the famous "Boston Tea-Party " 
of 1774. His aspect among the crowds of a later generation 
reminded me of a withered leaf which has held to its stem 
through the storms of autumn and winter, and finds itself 
still clinging to its bough while the new growths of spring 
are bursting their buds and spreading their foliage all 
around it. I make this explanation for the benefit of those 
who have been puzzled by the lines, 

" The last leaf upon the tree 
In the spring." 

The way in which it came to be written in a somewhat 
singular measure was this. I had become a little known 
as a versifier, and I thought that one or two other young 
writers were following my efforts with imitations, not 
meant as parodies and hardly to be considered improvements 
on their models. I determined to write in a measure which 
would at once betray any copyist. So far as it was sug- 
gested by any previous poem, the echo must have come 



70 THE LAST LEAF 

from Campbell's "Battle of the Baltic/ ' with its short ter- 
minal lines, such as the last of these two, 

" By thy wild and stormy steep, 
Elsinore." 

But I do not remember any poem in the same measure, ex- 
cept such as have been written since its publication. 

The poem as first written had one of those false rhymes 
which produce a shudder in all educated persons, even in 
the poems of Keats and others who ought to have known 
better than to admit them. 

The guilty verse ran thus : — 

11 But now he walks the streets, 
And he looks at all he meets 

So forlorn, 
And he shakes his feeble head, 
That it seems as if he said, 

'They are gone'! " 

A little more experience, to say nothing of the sneer of an 
American critic in an English periodical, showed me that 
this would never do. Here was what is called a " cockney 
rhyme,'' — one in which the sound of the letter r is neglected 
— maltreated as the letter h is insulted by the average Briton 
by leaving it out everywhere except where it should be silent. 
Such an ill-mated pair as u forlorn " and " gone " could not 
possibly pass current in good rhyming society. But what 
to do about it was the question. I must keep 

" They are gone ! " 

and I could not think of any rhyme which I could work in 
satisfactorily. In this perplexity my friend, Mrs. Folsom, 
wife of that excellent scholar, Mr. Charles Folsom, then and 
for a long time the unsparing and infallible corrector of the 
press at Cambridge, suggested the line, 

" Sad and wan," 

which I thankfully adopted and have always retained. 



THE LAST LEAF 71 

Good Abraham Lincoln had a great liking for the poem, 
and repeated it from memory to Governor Andrew, as the 
Governor himself told me. I have a copy of it made by 
the hand of Edgar Allan Poe. 

[When this poem was issued with an accompaniment of 
illustration and decoration in 1894, Dr. Holmes wrote to his 
publishers: — 

" I have read the proof you sent me and find nothing in 
it which I feel called upon to alter or explain. 

" I have lasted long enough to serve as an illustration of 
my own poem. I am one of the very last of the leaves 
which still cling to the bough of life that budded in the 
spring of the nineteenth century. The days of my years 
are threescore and twenty, and I am almost halfway up the 
steep incline which leads me toward the base of the new 
century so near to which I have already climbed. 

" I am pleased to find that this poem, carrying with it the 
marks of having been written in the jocund morning of life, 
is still read and cared for. It was with a smile on my lips 
that I wrote it; I cannot read it without a sigh of tender 
remembrance. I hope it will not sadden my older readers, 
while it may amuse some of the younger ones to whom its 
experiences are as yet only floating fancies. "] 



I SAW him once before, 
As he passed by the door, 
And again 
The pavement stones resound, 
As he totters o'er the ground 
With his cane. 

They say that in his prime, 
Ere the pruning-knife of Time 
Cut him down, 



72 THE LAST LEAF 

Not a better man was found 
By the Crier on his round 
Through the town. 

But now he walks the streets, 
J And he looks at all he meets 

Sad and wan, 
And he shakes his feeble head, 
That it seems as if he said, 

" They are gone." 

The mossy marbles rest 

On the lips that he has prest 

In their bloom, 
And the names he loved to hear 
Have been carved for many a year 

On the tomb. 

My grandmamma has said — 
Poor old lady, she is dead 

Long ago — 
That he had a Roman nose, 
And his cheek was like a rose 

In the snow ; 

But now his nose is thin, 
And it rests upon his chin 

Like a staff, 
And a crook is in his back, 
And a melancholy crack 

In his laugh. 



THE CAMBRIDGE CHURCHYARD 73 

I know it is a sin 
For me to sit and grin 

At him here ; 
But the old three-cornered hat, 
And the breeches, and all that, 

Are so queer ! 

And if I should live to be 
The last leaf upon the tree 

In the spring, 
Let them smile, as I do now, 
At the old forsaken bough 
Where I cling. 

THE CAMBRIDGE CHURCHYARD 

OUR ancient church ! its lowly tower, 
Beneath the loftier spire, 
Is shadowed when the sunset hour 
Clothes the tall shaft in fire ; 
It sinks beyond the distant eye 

Long ere the glittering vane, 
High wheeling in the western sky, 
Has faded o'er the plain. 

Like Sentinel and Nun, they keep 

Their vigil on the green ; 
One seems to guard, and one to weep, 

The dead that lie between ; 
And both roll out, so full and near, 

Their music's mingling waves, 
They shake the grass, whose pennoned spear 

Leans on the narrow graves. 



74 THE CAMBRIDGE CHURCHYARD 

The stranger parts the flaunting weeds, 

Whose seeds the winds have strown 
So thick, beneath the line he reads, 

They shade the sculptured stone ; 
The child unveils his clustered brow, 

And ponders for a while 
The graven willow's pendent bough, 

Or rudest cherub's smile. 

But what to them the dirge, the knell ? 

These were the mourner's share, — 
The sullen clang, whose heavy swell 

Throbbed through the beating air ; 
The rattling cord, the rolling stone, 

The shelving sand that slid, 
And, far beneath, with hollow tone 

Rung on the coffin's lid. 

The slumberer's mound grows fresh and green, 

Then slowly disappears ; 
The mosses creep, the gray stones lean, 

Earth hides his date and years ; 
But, long before the once-loved name 

Is sunk or worn away, 
No lip the silent dust may claim, 

That pressed the breathing clay. 

Go where the ancient pathway guides, 

See where our sires laid down 
Their smiling babes, their cherished brides, 

The patriarchs of the town ; 
Hast thou a tear for buried love ? 

A sigh for transient power ? 



THE CAMBRIDGE CHURCHYARD 75 

All that a century left above, 
Go, read it in an hour 1 

The Indian's shaft, the Briton's ball, 

The sabre's thirsting edge, 
The hot shell, shattering in its fall, 

The bayonet's rending wedge, — 
Here scattered death ; yet, seek the spot, 

No trace thine eye can see, 
No altar, — and they need it not 

Who leave their children free ! 

Look where the turbid rain-drops stand 

In many a chiselled square ; 
The knightly crest, the shield, the brand 

Of honored names were there ; — 
Alas ! for every tear is dried 

Those blazoned tablets knew, 
Save when the icy marble's side 

Drips with the evening dew. 

Or gaze upon yon pillared stone, 

The empty urn of pride ; 
There stand the Goblet and the Sun, — 

What need of more beside ? 
Where lives the memory of the dead, 

Who made their tomb a toy ? 
Whose ashes press that nameless bed ? 

Go, ask the village boy ! 

Lean o'er the slender western wall, 
Ye ever-roaming girls ; 



76 THE CAMBRIDGE CHURCHYARD 

The breath that bids the blossom fall 
May lift your floating curls, 

To sweep the simple lines that tell 
An exile's date and doom ; 

And sigh, for where his daughters dwell, 
They wreathe the stranger's tomb. 

And one amid these shades was born, 

Beneath this turf who lies, 
Once beaming as the summer's morn, 

That closed her gentle eyes ; 
If sinless angels love as we, 

Who stood thy grave beside, 
Three seraph welcomes waited thee, 

The daughter, sister, bride ! 

I wandered to thy buried mound 

When earth was hid below 
The level of the glaring ground, 

Choked to its gates with snow, 
And when with summer's flowery waves 

The lake of verdure rolled, 
As if a Sultan's white-robed slaves 

Had scattered pearls and gold. 

Nay, the soft pinions of the air, 

That lift this trembling tone, 
Its breath of love may almost bear 

To kiss thy funeral stone ; 
And, now thy smiles have passed away, 

For all the joy they gave, 
May sweetest dews and warmest ray 

Lie on thine early grave ! 



DOROTHY Q. 77 

When damps beneath and storms above 

Have bowed these fragile towers, 
Still o'er the graves yon locust grove 

Shall swing its Orient flowers ; 
And I would ask no mouldering bust, 

If e'er this humble line, 
Which breathed a sigh o'er others' dust, 

Might call a tear on mine. 



DOROTHY Q. 

A FAMILY PORTRAIT 

I cannot tell the story of Dorothy Q. more simply in prose 
than I have told it in verse, but I can add something to it. 

Dorothy was the daughter of Judge Edmund Quincy, and 
the niece of Josiah Quincy, junior, the young patriot and 
orator who died just before the American Revolution, of 
which he was one of the most eloquent and effective pro- 
moters. The son of the latter, Josiah Quincy, the first 
mayor of Boston bearing that name, lived to a great age, 
one of the most useful and honored citizens of his time. 

The canvas of the painting was so much decayed that it 
had to be replaced by a new one, in doing which the rapier 
thrust was of course filled up. 

GRANDMOTHER'S mother : her age, I guess, 
Thirteen summers, or something less ; 
Girlish bust, but womanly air ; 
Smooth, square forehead with uprolled hair ; 
Lips that lover has never kissed ; 
Taper fingers and slender wrist ; 
Hanging sleeves of stiff brocade ; 
So they painted the little maid. 



78 DOROTHY Q. 

On her hand a parrot green 

Sits unmoving and broods serene. 

Hold up the canvas full in view, — 

Look ! there 's a rent the light shines through, 

Dark with a century's fringe of dust, — 

That was a Red-Coat's rapier-thrust ! 

Such is the tale the lady old, 

Dorothy's daughter's daughter, told. 

Who the painter was none may tell, — 
One whose best was not over well ; 
Hard and dry, it must be confessed, 
Flat as a rose that has long been pressed ; 
Yet in her cheek the hues are bright, 
Dainty colors of red and white, 
And in her slender shape are seen 
Hint and promise of stately mien. 

Look not on her with eyes of scorn, — 
Dorothy Q. was a lady born ! 
Ay ! since the galloping Normans came, 
England's annals have known her name ; 
And still to the three-hilled rebel town 
Dear is that ancient name's renown, 
For many a civic wreath they won, 
The youthful sire and the gray-haired son. 

O Damsel Dorothy ! Dorothy Q. 
Strange is the gift that I owe to you ; 
Such a gift as never a king 
Save to daughter or son might bring, — 
All my tenure of heart and hand, 
All my title to house and land ; 



DOROTHY Q. 79 

Mother and sister and child and wife 
And joy and sorrow and death and life ! 

What if a hundred years ago 

Those close-shut lips had answered No, 

When forth the tremulous question came 

That cost the maiden her Norman name, 

And under the folds that look so still 

The bodice swelled with the bosom's thrill ? 

Should I be I, or would it be 

One tenth another, to nine tenths me ? 

Soft is the breath of a maiden's Yes : 

Not the light gossamer stirs with less ; 

But never a cable that holds so fast 

Through all the battles of wave and blast, 

And never an echo of speech or song 

That lives in the babbling air so long ! 

There were tones in the voice that whispered then 

You may hear to-day in a hundred men. 

lady and lover, how faint and far 
Your images hover, — and here we are, 
Solid and stirring in flesh and bone, — 
Edward's and Dorothy's — all their own, — 
A goodly record for Time to show 

Of a syllable spoken so long ago ! — 
Shall I bless you, Dorothy, or forgive 
For the tender whisper that bade me live ? 

It shall be a blessing, my little maid ! 

1 will heal the stab of the Red-Coat's blade, 



80 THE ORGAN-BLOWER 

And freshen the gold of the tarnished frame, 
And gild with a rhyme your household name ; 
So you shall smile on us brave and bright 
As first you greeted the morning's light, 
And live untroubled by woes and fears 
Through a second youth of a hundred years. 



THE ORGAN-BLOWER 

DEVOUTEST of my Sunday friends, 
The patient Organ-blower bends ; 
I see his figure sink and rise, 
(Forgive me, Heaven, my wandering eyes ! ) 
A moment lost, the uext half seen, 
His head above the scanty screen, 
Still measuring out his deep salaams 
Through quavering hymns and panting psalms. 

No priest that prays in gilded stole, 
To save a rich man's mortgaged soul ; 
No sister, fresh from holy vows, 
So humbly stoops, so meekly bows ; 
His large obeisance puts to shame 
The proudest genuflecting dame, 
Whose Easter bonnet low descends 
With all the grace devotion lends. 

O brother with the supple spine, 
How much we owe those bows of thine ! 
Without thine arm to lend the breeze, 
How vain the finger on the keys ! 



THE ORGAN-BLOWER 81 

Though all unmatched the player's skill, 
Those thousand throats were dumb and still : 
Another's art may shape the tone, 
The breath that nils it is thine own. 

Six days the silent Memnon waits 
Behind his temple's folded gates ; 
But when the seventh day's sunshine falls 
Through rainbowed windows on the walls, 
He breathes, he sings, he shouts, he fills 
The quivering air with rapturous thrills ; 
The roof resounds, the pillars shake, 
And all the slumbering echoes wake ! 

The Preacher from the Bible-text 
With weary words my soul has vexed 
(Some stranger, fumbling far astray 
To find the lesson for the day) ; 
He tells us truths too plainly true, 
And reads the service all askew, — 
Why, why the — mischief — can't he look 
Beforehand in the service-book ? 

But thou, with decent mien and face, 
Art always ready in thy place ; 
Thy strenuous blast, whate'er the tune, 
As steady as the strong monsoon ; 
Thy only dread a leathery creak, 
Or small residual extra squeak, 
To send along the shadowy aisles 
A sunlit wave of dimpled smiles. 



82 AGNES 

Not all the preaching, O my friend, 
Comes from the church's pulpit end ! 
Not all that bend the knee and bow 
Yield service half so true as thou ! 
One simple task performed aright, 
With slender skill, but all thy might, 
Where honest labor does its best, 
And leaves the player all the rest. 

This many-diapasoned maze, 

Through which the breath of being strays, 

Whose music makes our earth divine, 

Has work for mortal hands like mine. 

My duty lies before me. Lo, 

The lever there ! Take hold and blow ! 

And He whose hand is on the keys 

Will play the tune as He shall please. 



AGNES 

The story of Sir Harry Frankland and Agnes Surriage is 
told in the ballad with a very strict adhesion to the facts. 
These were obtained from information afforded me by the 
Eev. Mr. Webster, of Hopkinton, in company with whom I 
visited the Frankland Mansion in that town, then standing ; 
from a very interesting Memoir, by the Rev. Elias Nason, 
of Medford ; and from the manuscript diary of Sir Harry, 
or more properly Sir Charles Henry Frankland, now in the 
library of the Massachusetts Historical Society. 

At the time of the visit referred to, old Julia was living, 
and on our return we called at the house where she re- 
sided.* Her account is little more than paraphrased in the 

1 She was living June 10, 1861, when this ballad was published. 



AGNES 83 

poem. If the incidents are treated with a certain liberality 
at the close of the fifth part, the essential fact that Agnes 
rescued Sir Harry from the ruins after the earthquake, and 
their subsequent marriage as related, may be accepted as 
literal truth. So with regard to most of the trifling details 
which are given ; they are taken from the record. 

It is greatly to be regretted that the Frankland Mansion 
no longer exists. It was accidentally burned on the 23d of 
January, 1858, a year or two after the first sketch of this 
ballad was written. A visit to it was like stepping out of 
the century into the years before the Revolution. A new 
house, similar in plan and arrangements to the old one, has 
been built upon its site, and the terraces, the clump of box, 
and the lilacs doubtless remain to bear witness to the truth 
of this story. 

The story, which I have told literally in rhyme, has been 
made the subject of a carefully studied and interesting ro- 
mance by Mr. E. L. Bynner. 

PART I. THE KNIGHT 

THE tale I tell is gospel true, 
As all the bookmen know, 
And pilgrims who have strayed to view 
The wrecks still left to show. 

The old, old story, — fair, and young, 
And fond, — and not too wise, — 

That matrons tell, with sharpened tongue, 
To maids with downcast eyes. 

Ah ! maidens err and matrons warn 

Beneath the coldest sky ; 
Love lurks amid the tasselled corn 

As in the bearded rye ! 



84 AGNES 

But who would dream our sober sires 
Had learned the old world's ways, 

And warmed their hearths with lawless fires 
In Shirley's homespun days ? 

'T is like some poet's pictured trance 

His idle rhymes recite, — 
This old jSTew-England-born romance 

Of Agnes and the Knight ; 

Yet, known to all the country round, 

Their home is standing still, 
Between Wachusett's lonely mound 

And Shawmut's threefold hill. 

One hour we rumble on the rail, 

One half-hour guide the rein, 
We reach at last, o'er hill and dale, 

The village on the plain. 

With blackening wall and mossy roof, 
With stained and warping floor, 

A stately mansion stands aloof 
And bars its haughty door. 

This lowlier portal may be tried, 

That breaks the gable wall ; 
And lo ! with arches opening wide, 

Sir Harry Frankland's hall ! 

'T was in the second George's day 
They sought the forest shade, 



AGNES 85 

The knotted trunks they cleared away, 
The massive beams they laid, 

They piled the rock-hewn chimney tall, 
They smoothed the terraced ground, 

They reared the marble-pillared wall 
That fenced the mansion round. 

Far stretched beyond the village bound 

The Master's broad domain ; 
With page and valet, horse and hound, 

He kept a goodly train. 

And, all the midland county through, 

The ploughman stopped to gaze 
Whene'er his chariot swept in view 

Behind the shining bays, 

With mute obeisance, grave and slow, 

Repaid by nod polite, — 
For such the way with high and low 

Till after Concord fight. 

Nor less to courtly circles known 

That graced the three-hilled town 
With far-off splendors of the Throne, 

And glimmerings from the Crown ; 

Wise Phipps, who held the seals of state 

For Shirley over sea ; 
Brave Knowles, whose press-gang moved of late 

The King Street mob's decree ; 



3 AGNES 

And judges grave, and colonels grand, 

Fair dames and stately men, 
The mighty people of the land, 

The " World " of there and then. 

'T was strange no Chloe's " beauteous Form," 

And " Eyes' coelestial Blew," 
This Strephon of the West could warm, 

No Nymph his Heart subdue ! 

Perchance he wooed as gallants use, 

Whom fleeting loves enchain, 
But still unfettered, free to choose, 

Would brook no bridle-rein. 

He saw the fairest of the fair, 

But smiled alike on all ; 
No band his roving foot might snare, 

No ring his hand enthrall. 

PART II. THE MAIDEN 

Why seeks the knight that rocky cape 

Beyond the Bay of Lynn ? 
What chance his wayward course may shape 

To reach its village inn ? 

No story tells ; whate'er we guess, 

The past lies deaf and still, 
But Fate, who rules to blight or bless, 

Can lead us where she will. 



AGNES 87 

Make way ! Sir Harry's coach and four, 

And liveried grooms that ride ! 
They cross the ferry, touch the shore 

On Winnisimmet's side. 

They hear the wash on Chelsea Beach, — 

The level marsh they pass, 
Where miles on miles the desert reach 

Is rough with bitter grass. 

The shining horses foam and pant, 

And now the smells begin 
Of fishy Swampscott, salt Nahant, 

And leather-scented Lynn. 

Next, on their left, the slender spires 

And glittering vanes that crown 
The home of Salem's frugal sires, 

The old, witch-haunted town. 

So onward, o'er the rugged way 
That runs through rocks and sand, 

Showered by the tempest-driven spray, 
From bays on either hand, 

That shut between their outstretched arms 

The crews of Marblehead, 
The lords of ocean's watery farms, 

Who plough the waves for bread. 

At last the ancient inn appears, 
The spreading elm below, 



88 AGNES 

Whose flapping sign these fifty years 
Has seesawed to and fro. 

How fair the azure fields in sight 

Before the low-browed inn ! 
The tumbling billows fringe with light 

The crescent shore of Lynn ; 

Nahant thrusts outward through the waves 

Her arm of yellow sand, 
And breaks the roaring surge that braves 

The gauntlet on her hand ; 

With eddying whirl the waters lock 

Yon treeless mound forlorn, 
The sharp-winged sea-fowl's breeding-rock, 

That fronts the Spouting Horn ; 

Then free the white-sailed shallops glide, 

And wide the ocean smiles, 
Till, shoreward bent, his streams divide 

The two bare Misery Isles. 

The master's silent signal stays 

The wearied cavalcade ; 
The coachman reins his smoking bays 

Beneath the elm-tree's shade. 

A gathering on the village green ! 

The cocked-hats crowd to see, 
On legs in ancient velveteen, 

With buckles at the knee. 



AGNES 89 

A clustering round the tavern-door 

Of square-toed village boys, 
Still wearing, as their grandsires wore, 

The old-world corduroys ! 

A scampering at the " Fountain " inn, — 

A rush of great and small, — 
With hurrying servants' mingled din 

And screaming matron's call ! 

Poor Agnes ! with her work half done 

They caught her unaware ; 
As, humbly, like a praying nun, 

She knelt upon the stair ; 

Bent o'er the steps, with lowliest mien 

She knelt, but not to pray, — 
Her little hands must keep them clean, 

And wash their stains away. 

A foot, an ankle, bare and white, 
Her girlish shapes betrayed, — 
" Ha ! Nymphs and Graces ! " spoke the Knight ; 
" Look up, my beauteous Maid ! " 

She turned, — a reddening rose in bud, 

Its calyx half withdrawn, — 
Her cheek on fire with damasked blood 

Of girlhood's glowing dawn ! 

He searched her features through and through, 
As royal lovers look 



90 AGNES 

On lowly maidens, when they woo 
Without the ring and book. 

" Come hither, Fair one ! Here, my Sweet ! 
Nay, prithee, look not down ! 
Take this to shoe those little feet," — 
He tossed a silver crown. 

A sudden paleness struck her brow, — 

A swifter blush succeeds ; 
It burns her cheek ; it kindles now 

Beneath her golden beads. 

She flitted, but the glittering eye 

Still sought the lovely face. 
Who was she ? What, and whence ? and why 

Doomed to such menial place ? 

A skipper's daughter, — so they said, — 

Left orphan by the gale 
That cost the fleet of Marblehead 

And Gloucester thirty sail. 

Ah ! many a lonely home is found 

Along the Essex shore, 
That cheered its goodman outward bound, 

And sees his face no more ! 

" Not so," the matron whispered, — " sure 
No orphan girl is she, — 
The Surriage folk are deadly poor 
Since Edward left the sea, 



AGNES 91 

" And Mary, with her growing brood, 
Has work enough to do 
To find the children clothes and food 
With Thomas, John, and Hugh. 

" This girl of Mary's, growing tall, — 
(Just turned her sixteenth year,) — 
To earn her bread and help them all, 
Would work as housemaid here." 

So Agnes, with her golden beads, 

And naught beside as dower, 
Grew at the wayside with the weeds, 

Herself a garden-flower. 

'T was strange, 't was sad, — so fresh, so fair ! 

Thus Pity's voice began. 
Such grace ! an angel's shape and air ! 

The half -heard whisper ran. 

For eyes could see in George's time, 

As now in later days, 
And lips could shape, in prose and rhyme, 

The honeyed breath of praise. 

No time to woo 1 The train must go 

Long ere the sun is down, 
To reach, before the night-winds blow, 

The many-steepled town. 

'T is midnight, — street and square are still ; 
Dark roll the whispering waves 



92 AGNES 

That lap the piers beneath the hill 
Ridged thick with ancient graves. 

Ah, gentle sleep ! thy hand will smooth 

The weary couch of pain, 
When all thy poppies fail to soothe 

The lover's throbbing brain ! 

'T is morn, — the orange-mantled sun 
Breaks through the fading gray, 

And long and loud the Castle gun 
Peals o'er the glistening bay. 

" Thank God 't is day ! " With eager eye 
He hails the morning shine : — 

" If art can win, or gold can buy, 
The maiden shall be mine ! " 



PART III. THE CONQUEST 

" Who saw this hussy when she came ? 
What is the wench, and who ? " 
They whisper. Agnes — is her name ? 
Pray what has she to do ? 

The housemaids parley at the gate, 

The scullions on the stair, 
And in the footmen's grave debate 

The butler deigns to share. 

Black Dinah, stolen when a child, 
And sold on Boston pier, 



AGNES 93 

Grown up in service, petted, spoiled, 
Speaks in the coachman's ear : 

" What, all this household at his will ? 
And all are yet too few ? 
More servants, and more servants still, — 
This pert young madam too ! " 

" Servant ! fine servant ! " laughed aloud 

The man of coach and steeds ; 
" She looks too fair, she steps too proud, 

This girl with golden beads ! 

" I tell you, you may fret and frown, 

And call her what you choose, 

You '11 find my Lady in her gown, 

Your Mistress in her shoes ! " 

Ah, gentle maidens, free from blame, 

God grant you never know 
The little whisper, loud with shame, 

That makes the world your foe ! 

Why tell the lordly flatterer's art, 

That won the maiden's ear, — 
The fluttering of the frightened heart, 

The blush, the smile, the tear? 

Alas ! it were the saddening tale 

That every language knows, — 
The wooing wind, the yielding sail, 

The sunbeam and the rose. 



94 AGNES 

And now the gown of sober stuff 
Has changed to fair brocade, 

With broidered hem, and hanging cuff, 
And flower of silken braid ; 

And clasped around her blanching wrist 

A jewelled bracelet shines, 
Her flowing tresses' massive twist 

A glittering net confines ; 

And mingling with their truant wave 

A fretted chain is hung ; 
But ah ! the gift her mother gave, — 

Its beads are all unstrung ! 

Her place is at the master's board, 
Where none disputes her claim ; 

She walks beside the mansion's lord, 
His bride in all but name. 

The busy tongues have ceased to talk, 

Or speak in softened tone, 
So gracious in her daily walk 

The angel light has shown. 

No want that kindness may relieve 

Assails her heart in vain, 
The lifting of a ragged sleeve 

Will check her palfrey's rein. 

A thoughtful calm, a quiet grace 
In every movement shown, 



AGNES 95 

Reveal her moulded for the place 
She may not call her own. 

And, save that on her youthful brow 

There broods a shadowy care, 
No matron sealed with holy vow 

In all the land so fair ! 



PART IV. THE RESCUE 

A ship comes foaming up the bay, 

Along the pier she glides • 
Before her furrow melts away, 

A courier mounts and rides. 

" Haste, Haste, post Haste ! " the letters bear ; 
" Sir Harry Frankland, These." 
Sad news to tell the loving pair ! 
The knight must cross the seas. 

" Alas ! we part ! " — the lips that spoke 
Lost all their rosy red, 
As when a crystal cup is broke, 
And all its wine is shed. 

" Nay, droop not thus, — where'er," he cried, 
" I go by land or sea, 
My love, my life, my joy, my pride, 
Thy place is still by me ! " 

Through town and city, far and wide, 
Their wandering feet have strayed, 



96 AGNES 

From Alpine lake to ocean tide, 
And cold Sierra's shade. 

At length they see the waters gleam 

Amid the fragrant bowers 
Where Lisbon mirrors in the stream 

Her belt of ancient towers. 

Red is the orange on its bough, 

To-morrow's sun shall fling 
O'er Cintra's hazel-shaded brow 

The flush of April's wing. 

The streets are loud with noisy mirth, 

They dance on every green ; 
The morning's dial marks the birth 

Of proud Braganza's queen. 

At eve beneath their pictured dome 

The gilded courtiers throng ; 
The broad moidores have cheated Rome 

Of all her lords of song. 

Ah ! Lisbon dreams not of the day — 
Pleased with her painted scenes — 

When all her towers shall slide away 
As now these canvas screens ! 

The spring has passed, the summer fled, 

And yet they linger still, 
Though autumn's rustling leaves have spread 

The flank of Cintra's hill. 



AGNES 97 

The town has learned their Saxon name, 
And touched their English gold, 

Nor tale of doubt nor hint of blame 
From over sea is told. 

Three hours the first November dawn 

Has climbed with feeble ray 
Through mists like heavy curtains drawn 

Before the darkened day. 

How still the muffled echoes sleep ! 

Hark ! hark ! a hollow sound, — 
A noise like chariots rumbling deep 

Beneath the solid ground. 

The channel lifts, the water slides 

And bares its bar of sand, 
Anon a mountain billow strides 

And crashes o'er the land. 

The turrets lean, the steeples reel 

Like masts on ocean's swell, 
And clash a long discordant peal, 

The death-doomed city's knell. 

The pavement bursts, the earth upheaves 

Beneath the staggering town ! 
The turrets crack — the castle cleaves — 

The spires come rushing down. 

Around, the lurid mountains glow 
With strange unearthly gleams ; 



98 AGNES 

While black abysses gape below, 
Then close in jagged seams. 

The earth has folded like a wave, 

And thrice a thousand score, 
Clasped, shroudless, in their closing grave, 

The sun shall see no more ! 

And all is over. Street and square 

In ruined heaps are piled ; 
Ah ! where is she, so frail, so fair, 

Amid the tumult wild ? 

Unscathed, she treads the wreck-piled street, 

Whose narrow gaps afford 
A pathway for her bleeding feet, 

To seek her absent lord. 

A temple's broken walls arrest 

Her wild and wandering eyes ; 
Beneath its shattered portal pressed, 

Her lord unconscious lies. 

The power that living hearts obey 
Shall lifeless blocks withstand? 

Love led her footsteps where he lay, — 
Love nerves her woman's hand : 

One cry, — the marble shaft she grasps, — 
Up heaves the ponderous stone : — 

He breathes, — her fainting form he clasps, — 
Her life has bought his own ! 



AGNES 99 



PART V. THE REWARD 

How like the starless night of death 

Our being's brief eclipse, 
When faltering heart and failing breath 

Have bleached the fading lips ! 

She lives ! What guerdon shall repay 

His debt of ransomed life ? 
One word can charm all wrongs away, — 

The sacred name of Wife ! 

The love that won her girlish charms 
Must shield her matron fame, 

And write beneath the Frankland arms 
The village beauty's name. 

Go, call the priest ! no vain delay 

Shall dim the sacred ring ! 
Who knows what change the passing day, 

The fleeting hour, may bring ? 

Before the holy altar bent, 

There kneels a goodly pair ; 
A stately man, of high descent, 

A woman, passing fair. 

No jewels lend the blinding sheen 

That meaner beauty needs, 
But on her bosom heaves unseen 

A string of golden beads. 



^'•fC, 



100 AGNES 

The vow is spoke, — the prayer is said, — 

And with a gentle pride 
The Lady Agnes lifts her head, 

Sir Harry Frankland's bride. 

No more her faithful heart shall bear 
Those griefs so meekly borne, — 

The passing sneer, the freezing stare, 
The icy look of scorn ; 

No more the blue-eyed English dames 
Their haughty lips shall curl, 

Whene'er a hissing whisper names 
The poor New England girl. 

But stay ! — his mother's haughty brow, - 
The pride of ancient race, — 

Will plighted faith, and holy vow, 
Win back her fond embrace ? 

Too well she knew the saddening tale 

Of love no vow had blest, 
That turned his blushing honors pale 

And stained his knightly crest. 

They seek his Northern home, — alas : 

He goes alone before ; — 
His own dear Agnes may not pass 

The proud, ancestral door. 

He stood before the stately dame ; 
He spoke ; she calmly heard, 



AGNES 101 

But not to pity, nor to blame ; 
She breathed no single word. 

He told his love, — her faith betrayed ; 

She heard with tearless eyes ; 
Could she forgive the erring maid ? 

She stared in cold surprise. 

How fond her heart, he told, — how true ; 

The haughty eyelids fell ; — 
The kindly deeds she loved to do ; 

She murmured, " It is well." 

But when he told that fearful day, 

And how her feet were led 
To where entombed in life he lay, 

The breathing with the dead, 

And how she bruised her tender breasts 

Against the crushing stone, 
That still the strong-armed clown protests 

No man can lift alone, — 

Oh ! then the frozen spring was broke ; 
By turns she wept and smiled ; — 
11 Sweet Agnes ! " so the mother spoke, 
" God bless my angel child ! 

" She saved thee from the jaws of death, — 
'T is thine to right her wrongs ; 
I tell thee, — I, who gave thee breath, — 
To her thy life belongs ! " 



102 AGNES 

Thus Agnes won her noble name, 
Her lawless lover's hand ; 

The lowly maiden so became 
A lady in the land ! 



PART VI. CONCLUSION 

The tale is done ; it little needs 

To track their after ways, 
And string again the golden beads 

Of love's uncounted days. 

They leave the fair ancestral isle 
For bleak New England's shore ; 

How gracious is the courtly smile 
Of all who frowned before ! 

Again through Lisbon's orange bowers 

They watch the river's gleam, 
And shudder as her shadowy towers 

Shake in the trembling stream. 

Fate parts at length the fondest pair ; 

His cheek, alas ! grows pale ; 
The breast that trampling death could spare 

His noiseless shafts assail. 

He longs to change the heaven of blue 

For England's clouded sky, — 
To breathe the air his boyhood knew ; 

He seeks them but to die. 



AGNES 103 

Hard by the terraced hillside town, 

Where healing streamlets run, 
Still sparkling with their old renown, — 

The " Waters of the Sun," — 

The Lady Agnes raised the stone 

That marks his honored grave, 
And there Sir Harry sleeps alone 

By Wiltshire Avon's wave. 

The home of early love was dear ; 

She sought its peaceful shade, 
And kept her state for many a year, 

With none to make afraid. 

At last the evil days were come 

That saw the red cross fall ; 
She hears the rebels' rattling drum, — 

Farewell to Frankland Hall ! 

I tell you, as my tale began, 

The hall is standing still ; 
And you, kind listener, maid or man, 

May see it if you will. 

The box is glistening huge and green, 

Like trees the lilacs grow, 
Three elms high-arching still are seen, 

And one lies stretched below. 

The hangings, rough with velvet flowers, 
Flap on the latticed wall ; 



104 AGNES 

And o'er the mossy ridgepole towers 
The rock-hewn chimney tall. 

The doors on mighty hinges clash 
With massive bolt and bar, 

The heavy English-moulded sash 
Scarce can the night winds jar. 

Behold the chosen room he sought 

Alone, to fast and pray, 
Each year, as chill November brought 

The dismal earthquake day. 

There hung the rapier blade he wore, 
Bent in its flattened sheath ; 

The coat the shrieking woman tore 
Caught in her clenching teeth ; — 

The coat with tarnished silver lace 
She snapped at as she slid, 

And down upon her death-white face 
Crashed the huge coffin's lid. 

A graded terrace yet remains ; 

If on its turf you stand 
And look along the wooded plains 

That stretch on either hand, 

The broken forest walls define] 

A dim, receding view, 
Where, on the far horizon's line, 

He cut his vista through. 



AGNES 105 

If further story you shall crave, 

Or ask for living proof, 
Go see old Julia, born a slave 

Beneath Sir Harry's roof. 

She told me half that I have told, 

And she remembers well 
The mansion as it looked of old 

Before its glories fell ; — 

The box, when round the terraced square 

Its glossy wall was drawn ; 
The climbing vines, the snow-balls fair, 

The roses on the lawn. 

And Julia says, with truthful look 

Stamped on her wrinkled face, 
That in her own black hands she took 

The coat with silver lace. 

And you may hold the story light, 

Or, if you like, believe ; 
But there it was, the woman's bite, — 

A mouthful from the sleeve. 

Now go your ways ; — I need not tell 

The moral of my rhyme ; 
But, youths and maidens, ponder well 

This tale of olden time 1 



106 AVIS 



AVIS 

This is a true story. Avis, Avise, or Avice (they pro- 
nounce it Avvis) is a real breathing person. Her home is 
not more than an hour and a half's space from the palaces 
of the great ladies who might like to look at her. They may 
see her and the little black girl she gave herself to, body 
and soul, when nobody else could bear the sight of her in- 
firmity — leaving home at noon, or even after breakfast, and 
coming back in season to undress for the evening's party. 

I MAY not rightly call thy name, — 
Alas ! thy forehead never knew 
The kiss that happier children claim, 
Nor glistened with baptismal dew. 

Daughter of want and wrong and woe, 

I saw thee with thy sister-band, 
Snatched from the whirlpool's narrowing flow 

By Mercy's strong yet trembling hand. 

" Avis ! " — With Saxon eye and cheek, 
At once a woman and a child, 
The saint uncrowned I came to seek 

Drew near to greet us, — spoke, and smiled. 

God gave that sweet sad smile she wore 
All wrong to shame, all souls to win, — 

A heavenly sunbeam sent before 

Her footsteps through a world of sin. 

" And who is Avis ? " — Hear the tale 

The calm- voiced matrons gravely tell, — 



AVIS 107 

The story known through all the vale 
Where Avis and her sisters dwell. 

With the lost children running wild, 
Strayed from the hand of human care, 

They find one little refuse child 
Left helpless in its poisoned lair. 

The primal mark is on her face, — 
The chattel-stamp, — the pariah-stain 

That follows still her hunted race, — 
The curse without the crime of Cain. 

How shall our smooth-turned phrase relate 

The little suffering outcast's ail? 
Xot Lazarus at the rich man's gate 

So turned the rose-wreathed revellers pale. 

Ah, veil the living death from sight 
That wounds our beauty-loving eye ! 

The children turn in selfish fright, 
The white-lipped nurses hurry by. 

Take her, dread Angel ! Break in love 
This bruised reed and make it thine ! — 

No voice descended from above, 
But Avis answered, " She is mine." 

The task that dainty menials spurn 

The fair young girl has made her own ; 

Her heart shall teach, her hand shall learn 
The toils, the duties yet unknown. 



108 A SUN-DAY HYMN 

So Love and Death in lingering 1 strife 
Stand face to face from day to day, 

Still battling for the spoil of Life 
While the slow seasons creep away. 

Love conquers Death ; the prize is won ; 

See to her joyous bosom pressed 
The dusky daughter of the sun, — 

The bronze against the marble breast I 

Her task is done ; no voice divine 
Has crowned her deeds with saintly fame. 

No eye can see the aureole shine 

That rings her brow with heavenly flame. 

Yet what has holy page more sweet, 
Or what had woman's love more fair, 

When Mary clasped her Saviour's feet 
With flowing eyes and streaming hair ? 

Meek child of sorrow, walk unknown, 
The Angel of that earthly throng, 

And let thine image live alone 
To hallow this unstudied song ! 



A SUN-DAY HYMN 

LORD of all being ! throned afar, 
Thy glory flames from sun and star ; 
Centre and soul of every sphere, 
Yet to each loving heart how near ! 



THE CROOKED FOOTPATH 109 

Sun of our life, thy quickening ray- 
Sheds on our path the glow of day ; 
Star of our hope, thy softened light 
Cheers the long watches of the night. 

Our midnight is thy smile withdrawn ; 
Our noontide is thy gracious dawn ; 
Our rainbow arch thy mercy's sign ; 
All, save the clouds of sin, are thine ! 

Lord of all life, below, above, 

Whose light is truth, whose warmth is love, 

Before thy ever-blazing throne 

We ask no lustre of our own. 

Grant us thy truth to make us free, 
And kindling hearts that burn for thee, 
Till all thy living altars claim 
One holy light, one heavenly flame ! 



THE CEOOKED FOOTPATH 

A H, here it is ! the sliding rail 
JlJL That marks the old remembered spot, - 
The gap that struck our school-boy trail, — 
The crooked path across the lot. 

It left the road by school and church, 
A pencilled shadow, nothing more, 

That parted from the silver-birch 
And ended at the farm-house door. 



110 THE CROOKED FOOTPATH 

No line or compass traced its plan ; 

With frequent bends to left or right, 
In aimless, wayward curves it ran, 

But always kept the door in sight. 

The gabled porch, with woodbine green, — 
The broken millstone at the sill, — 

Though many a rood might stretch between, 
The truant child could see them still. 

No rocks across the pathway lie, — 
No fallen trunk is o'er it thrown, — 

And yet it winds, we know not why, 
And turns as if for tree or stone. 

Perhaps some lover trod the way 

With shaking knees and leaping heart, — 

And so it often runs astray 

With sinuous sweep or sudden start. 

Or one, perchance, with clouded brain 
From some unholy banquet reeled, — 

And since, our devious steps maintain 
His track across the trodden field. 

Nay, deem not thus, — no earthborn will 
Could ever trace a faultless line ; 

Our truest steps are human still, — 
To walk unswerving were divine ! 

Truants from love, we dream of wrath ; — 
Oh, rather let us trust the more ! 

Through all the wanderings of the path 
We still can see our Father's door ! 



ROBINSON OF LEYDEN 111 



ROBINSON OF LEYDEN 

HE sleeps not here ; in hope and prayer 
His wandering flock had gone before, 
But he, the shepherd, might not share 
Their sorrows on the wintry shore. 

Before the Speedwell's anchor swung, 
Ere yet the Mayflower's sail was spread, 

While round his feet the Pilgrims clung, 
The pastor spake, and thus he said : — 

" Men, brethren, sisters, children dear ! 
God calls you hence from over sea ; 
Ye may not build by Haerlem Meer, 
Nor yet along the Zuyder-Zee. 

" Ye go to bear the saving word 

To tribes unnamed and shores untrod ; 
Heed well the lessons ye have heard 
From those old teachers taught of God. 

" Yet think not unto them was lent 
All light for all the coming days, 
And heaven's eternal wisdom spent 
In making straight the ancient ways ; 

" The living fountain overflows 
For every flock, for every lamb, 
Nor heeds, though angry creeds oppose 
With Luther's dike or Calvin's dam." 



112 ROBINSON OF LEYDEN 

He spake ; with lingering, long embrace, 
With tears of love and partings fond, 

They floated down the creeping Maas, 
Along the isle of Ysselmond. 

They passed the frowning towers of Briel, 
The « Hook of Holland's " shelf of sand, 

And grated soon with lifting keel 
The sullen shores of Fatherland. 

No home for these ! — too well they knew 
The mitred king behind the throne; — 

The sails were set, the pennons flew, 
And westward ho 1 for worlds unknown. 

And these were they who gave us birth, 
The Pilgrims of the sunset wave, 

Who won for us this virgin earth, 
And freedom with the soil they gave. 

The pastor slumbers by the Rhine, — 
In alien earth the exiles lie, — 

Their nameless graves our holiest shrine, 
His words our noblest battle-cry ! 

Still cry them, and the world shall hear, 
Ye dwellers by the storm-swept sea 1 

Ye have not built by Haerlem Meer, 
Nor on the land-locked Zuyder-Zee 1 



MY AVIARY 113 



MY AVIARY 



THROUGH my north window, in the wintry 
weather, — 
My airy oriel on the river shore, — 
I watch the sea-fowl as they flock together 

Where late the boatman flashed his dripping oar. 

The gull, high floating, like a sloop unladen, 
Lets the loose water waft him as it will ; 

The duck, round-breasted as a rustic maiden, 
Paddles and plunges, busy, busy still. 

I see the solemn gulls in council sitting 

On some broad ice-floe pondering long and late, 

While overhead the home-bound ducks are flitting, 
And leave the tardy conclave in debate, 

Those weighty questions in their breasts revolving 
Whose deeper meaning science never learns, 

Till at some reverend elder's look dissolving, 
The speechless senate silently adjourns. 

But when along the waves the shrill northeaster 
Shrieks through the laboring coaster's shrouds 
" Beware ! " 

The pale bird, kindling like a Christmas feaster 
When some wild chorus shakes the vinous air, 

Flaps from the leaden wave in fierce rejoicing, 
Feels heaven's dumb lightning thrill his torpid 
nerves, 



114 MY AVIARY 

Now on the blast his whistling plumage poising, 
Now wheeling, whirling in fantastic curves. 

Such is our gull ; a gentleman of leisure, 

Less fleshed than feathered ; bagged you '11 find 
him such ; 

His virtue silence ; his employment pleasure ; 
Not bad to look at, and not good for much. 

What of our duck ? He has some high-bred cous- 
ins, — 
His Grace the Canvas-back, — My Lord the 
Brant, — 
Anas and A user, — both served up by dozens, 
At Boston's Rocher, halfway to Nahant. 

As for himself, he seems alert and thriving, — 

Grubs up a living somehow — what, who knows? 
Crabs ? mussels ? weeds ? — Look quick ! there 's 
one just diving ! 
Flop ! Splash ! his white breast glistens — down 
he goes ! 

And while he 's under — just about a minute — 

I take advantage of the fact to say 
His fishy carcase has no virtue in it 

The gunning idiot's worthless hire to pay. 

He knows you ! " sportsmen " from suburban 
alleys, 

Stretched under seaweed in the treacherous punt ; 
Knows every lazy, shiftless lout that sallies 

Forth to waste powder — as he says, to " hunt." 



MY AVIARY 115 

I watch you with a patient satisfaction, 

Well pleased to discount your predestined luck ; 

The float that figures in your sly transaction 
Will carry back a goose, but not a duck. 

Shrewd is our bird ; not easy to outwit him ! 

Sharp is the outlook of those pin-head eyes ; 
Still, he is mortal and a shot may hit him, 

One cannot always miss him if he tries. 

Look ! there 's a young one, dreaming not of 
danger ; 

Sees a flat log come floating down the stream ; 
Stares undismayed upon the harmless stranger ; 

Ah ! were all strangers harmless as they seem ! 

Habet ! a leaden shower his breast has shattered ; 

Vainly he flutters, not again to rise ; 
His soft white plumes along the waves are scattered ; 

Helpless the wing that braved the tempest lies. 

He sees his comrades high above him flying 
To seek their nests among the island reeds ; 

Strong is their flight ; all lonely he is lying 
Washed by the crimsoned water as he bleeds. 

O Thou who carest for the falling sparrow, 
Canst Thou the sinless sufferer's pang forget ? 

Or is thy dread account-book's page so narrow 
Its one long column scores thy creatures' debt? 

Poor gentle guest, by nature kindly cherished, 
A world grows dark with thee in blinding death ; 



116 MY AVIARY 

One little gasp — thy universe has perished, 
Wrecked by the idle thief who stole thy breath ! 

Is this the whole sad story of creation, 

Lived by its breathing myriads o'er and o'er, — 

One glimpse of day, then black annihilation, — 
A sunlit passage to a sunless shore ? 

Give back our faith, ye mystery-solving lynxes ! 

Robe us once more in heaven-aspiring creeds ! 
Happier was dreaming Egypt with her sphinxes, 

The stony convent with its cross and beads ! 

How often gazing where a bird reposes, 

Rocked on the wavelets, drifting with the tide, 

I lose myself in strange metempsychosis 
And float a sea-fowl at a sea-fowl's side ; 

From rain, hail, snow in feathery mantle muffled, 
Clear-eyed, strong-limbed, with keenest sense to 
hear 
My mate soft murmuring, who, with plumes un- 
ruffled, 
Where'er I wander still is nestling near ; 

The great blue hollow like a garment o'er me ; 

Space all unmeasured, unrecorded time ; 
While seen with inward eye moves on before me 

Thought's pictured train in wordless pantomime. 

A voice recalls me. — From my window turning 
I find myself a plumeless biped still ; 

No beak, no claws, no sign of wings discerning, — 
In fact with nothing bird-like but my quill. 






THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY 117 



A BALLAD OF THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY 

The tax on tea, which was considered so odious and led 
to the act on which A Ballad of the Boston Tea-Party is 
founded, was but a small matter, only twopence in the 
pound. But it involved a principle of taxation, to which 
the Colonies would not submit. Their objection was not to 
the amount, but to the claim. The East India Company, 
however, sent out a number of tea-ships to different Ameri- 
can ports, three of them to Boston. 

The inhabitants tried to send them back, but in vain. 
The captains of the ships had consented, if permitted, to re- 
turn with their cargoes to England, but the consignees re- 
fused to discharge them from their obligations, the cus- 
tom house to give them a clearance for their return, and the 
governor to grant them a passport for going by the fort. 
It was easily seen that the tea would be gradually landed 
from the ships lying so near the town, and that if landed it 
would be disposed of, and the purpose of establishing the 
monopoly and raising a revenue effected. To prevent the 
dreaded consequence, a number of armed men, disguised 
like Indians, boarded the ships and threw their whole car- 
goes of tea into the dock. About seventeen persons boarded 
the ships in Boston harbor, and emptied three hundred and 
forty-two chests of tea. Among these "Indians" was 
Major Thomas Melville, the same who suggested to me the 
poem, The Last Leaf. 

Read at a meeting of the Massachusetts Historical So- 
ciety in 1874. 

NO ! never such a draught was poured 
Since Hebe served with nectar 
The bright Olympians and their Lord, 

Her over-kind protector, — 
Since Father Noah squeezed the grape 
And took to such behaving 



118 THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY 

As would have shamed our grandsire ape 

Before the days of shaving, — 
No ! ne'er was mingled such a draught 

In palace, hall, or arbor, 
As freemen brewed and tyrants quaffed 

That night in Boston Harbor ! 
It kept King George so long awake 

His brain at last got addled, 
It made the nerves of Britain shake, 

With sevenscore millions saddled ; 
Before that bitter cup was drained, 

Amid the roar of cannon, 
The Western war-cloud's crimson stained 

The Thames, the Clyde, the Shannon ; 
Full many a six-foot grenadier 

The flattened grass had measured, 
And many a mother many a year 

Her tearful memories treasured ; 
Fast spread the tempest's darkening pall, 

The mighty realms were troubled, 
The storm broke loose, but first of all 

The Boston teapot bubbled ! 

An evening party, — only that, 

No formal invitation, 
No gold-laced coat, no stiff cravat, 

No feast in contemplation, 
No silk-robed dames, no fiddling band, 

No flowers, no songs, no dancing, — ■ 
A tribe of red men, axe in hand, — 

Behold the guests advancing ! 
How fast the stragglers join the throng, 

From stall and workshop gathered ! 



THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY 119 

The lively barber skips along 

And leaves a chin half -lathered ; 
The smith has flung his hammer down, — 

The horseshoe still is glowing ; 
The truant tapster at the Crown 

Has left a beer-cask flowing ; 
The cooper's boys have dropped the adze, 

And trot behind their master; 
Up run the tarry ship-yard lads, — 

The crowd is hurrying faster, — 
Out from the Millpond's purlieus gush 

The streams of white-faced millers, 
And down their slippery alleys rush 

The lusty young Fort-Hillers ; 
The ropewalk lends its 'prentice crew, — 

The tories seize the omen : 
" Ay, boys, you '11 soon have work to do 

For England's rebel foemen, 
1 King Hancock,' Adams, and their gang, 

That fire the mob with treason, — 
When these we shoot and those we hang 

The town will come to reason. " 

On — on to where the tea-ships ride ! 

And now their ranks are forming, — 
A rush, and up the Dartmouth's side 

The Mohawk band is swarming ! 
See the fierce natives ! What a glimpse 

Of paint and fur and feather, 
As all at once the full-grown imps 

Light on the deck together ! 
A scarf the pigtail's secret keeps, 

A blanket hides the breeches, — 



120 THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY 

And out the cursed cargo leaps, 
And overboard it pitches ! 

O woman, at the evening board 

So gracious, sweet, and purring, 
So happy while the tea is poured, 

So blest while spoons are stirring, 
What martyr can compare with thee, 

The mother, wife, or daughter, 
That night, instead of best Bohea, 

Condemned to milk and water ! 

Ah, little dreams the quiet dame 

Who plies with rock and spindle 
The patient flax, how great a flame 

Yon little spark shall kindle ! 
The lurid morning shall reveal 

A fire no king can smother 
Where British flint and Boston steel 

Have clashed against each other ! 
Old charters shrivel in its track, 

His Worship's bench has crumbled, 
It climbs and clasps the union-jack, 

Its blazoned pomp is humbled, 
The flags go down on land and sea 

Like corn before the reapers ; 
So burned the fire that brewed the tea 

That Boston served her keepers ! 

The waves that wrought a century's wreck 
Have rolled o'er whig and tory ; 

The Mohawks on the Dartmouth's deck 
Still live in song and story ; 



GRANDMOTHER'S STORY 121 

The waters in the rebel bay- 
Have kept the tea-leaf savor ; 

Our old North-Enders in their spray 
Still taste a Hyson flavor ; 

And Freedom's teacup still o'erflows 
With ever fresh libations, 

To cheat of slumber all her foes 
And cheer the wakening nations I 

GRANDMOTHER'S STORY OF BUNKER- 
HILL BATTLE 

AS SHE SAW IT FROM THE BELFRY 

The story of Bunker Hill battle is told as literally in ac- 
cordance with the best authorities as it would have been if 
it had been written in prose instead of in verse. I have 
often been asked what steeple it was from which the little 
group I speak of looked upon the conflict. To this I an- 
swer that I am not prepared to speak authoritatively, but 
that the reader may take his choice among all the steeples 
standing at that time in the northern part of the city. 
Christ Church in Salem Street is the one I always think of, 
but I do not insist upon its claim. As to the personages 
who made up the small company that followed the old cor- 
poral, it would be hard to identify them, but by ascertain- 
ing where the portrait by Copley is now to be found, some 
light may be thrown on their personality. 

Daniel Malcolm's gravestone, splintered by British bul- 
lets, may be seen in the Copp's Hill burial-ground. 

'fin IS like stirring living embers when, at eighty, 

J- one remembers 
All the achings and the quakings of "the times 
that tried men's souls ; " 



122 GRANDMOTHER'S STORY 

When I talk of Whig and Tory, when I tell the 

Rebel story, 
To you the words are ashes, but to me they're 

burning coals. 

I had heard the muskets' rattle of the April run- 
ning battle ; 

Lord Percy's hunted soldiers, I can see their red 
coats still ; 

But a deadly chill comes o'er me, as the day looms 
up before me, 

When a thousand men lay bleeding on the slopes 
of Bunker's Hill. 

*T was a peaceful summer's morning, when the 

first thing gave us warning 
Was the booming of the cannon from the river 

and the shore : 
" Child," says grandma, " what 's the matter, what 

is all this noise and clatter ? 
Have those scalping Indian devils come to murder 

us once more ? " 

Poor old soul ! my sides were shaking in the midst 
of all my quaking, 

To hear her talk of Indians when the guns began 
to roar : 

She had seen the burning village, and the slaugh- 
ter and the pillage, 

When the Mohawks killed her father with their 
bullets through his door. 



GRANDMOTHER'S STORY 123 

Then I said, "Now, dear old granny, don't yon 
fret and worry any, 

For I '11 soon come back and tell yon whether this 
is work or play ; 

There can't be mischief in it, so I won't be gone a 
minute " — 

For a minute then I started. I was gone the live- 
long day. 

No time for bodice-lacing or for looking-glass 
grimacing ; 

Down my hair went as I hurried, tumbling half- 
way to my heels ; 

God forbid your ever knowing, when there 's blood 
around her flowing, 

How the lonely, helpless daughter of a quiet 
household feels ! 

In the street I heard a thumping ; and I knew it 

was the stumping 
Of the Corporal, our old neighbor, on that wooden 

leg he wore, 
With a knot of women round him, — it was lucky 

I had found him, 
So I followed with the others, and the Corporal 

marched before. 

They were making for the steeple, — the old soldier 

and his people ; 
The pigeons circled round us as we climbed the 

creaking stair. 



124 GRANDMOTHER'S STORY 

Just across the narrow river — oh, so close it made 

me shiver ! — 
Stood a fortress on the hill-top that but yesterday 

was bare. 

Not slow our eyes to find it ; — well we knew who 

stood behind it, 
Though the earthwork hid them from us, and the 

stubborn walls were dumb : 
Here were sister, wife, and mother, looking wild 

upon each other, 
And their lips were white with terror as they said, 

The hour has come! 

The morning slowly wasted, not a morsel had we 
tasted, 

And our heads were almost splitting with the 
cannons' deafening thrill, 

When a figure tall and stately round the rampart 
strode sedately ; 

It was Prescott, one since told me; he com- 
manded on the hill. 

Every woman's heart grew bigger when we saw 

his manly figure, 
With the banyan buckled round it, standing up so 

straight and tall ; 
Like a gentleman of leisure who is strolling out 

for pleasure, 
Through the storm of shells and cannon-shot he 

walked around the wall. 



GRANDMOTHER'S STORY 125 

At eleven the streets were swarming, for the red- 
coats' ranks were forming ; 

At noon in marching order they were moving to 
the piers ; 

How the bayonets gleamed and glistened, as we 
looked far down, and listened 

To the trampling and the drnm-beat of the belted 
grenadiers 1 

At length the men have started, with a cheer (it 
seemed faint-hearted), 

In their scarlet regimentals, with their knapsacks 
on their backs, 

And the reddening, rippling water, as after a sea- 
fight's slaughter, 

Round the barges gliding onward blushed like 
blood along their tracks. 

So they crossed to the other border, and again they 

formed in order ; 
And the boats came back for soldiers, came for 

soldiers, soldiers still : 
The time seemed everlasting to us women faint and 

fasting, — 
At last they 're moving, marching, marching 

proudly up the hill. 

We can see the bright steel glancing all along the 

lines advancing, — 
Now the front rank fires a volley, — they have 

thrown away their shot ; 



126 GRANDMOTHERS STORY 

For behind their earthwork lying, all the Dalls 

above them flying, 
Our people need not hurry ; — so they wait and an- 

swer not. 

Then the Corporal, our old cripple (he would swear 

sometimes and tipple), — 
He had heard the Bullets whistle (in the old French 

war) before, — 
Calls out in words of jeering, just as if they all 

were hearing, — 
And his wooden leg thumps fiercely on the dusty 

belfry floor : — 

" Oh ! fire away, ye villains, and earn King George's 
shilling, 

But ye '11 waste a ton of powder afore a ' rebel ' 
falls ; 

You may bang the dirt and welcome, they 're as 
safe as Dan'l Malcolm 

Ten foot beneath the gravestone that you 've splin- 
tered with your balls ! " 

In the hush of expectation, in the awe and trepida- 
tion 

Of the dread approaching moment, we are well- 
nigh breathless all ; 

Though the rotten bars are failing on the rickety 
belfry railing, 

We are crowding up against them like the waves 
against a wall. 



GRANDMOTHER'S STORY 127 

Just a glimpse (the air is clearer), they are nearer, 
— nearer, — nearer, 

When a flash — a curling smoke-wreath — then a 
crash — the steeple shakes — 

The deadly truce is ended ; the tempest's shroud 
is rended ; 

Like a morning mist it gathered, like a thunder- 
cloud it breaks ! 

Oh the sight our eyes discover as the blue-black 

smoke blows over ! 
The red-coats stretched in windrows as a mower 

rakes his hay ; 
Here a scarlet heap is lying, there a headlong 

crowd is flying 
Like a billow that has broken and is shivered into 

spray. 

Then we cried, " The troops are routed ! they are 

beat — it can't be doubted ! 
God be thanked, the fight is over ! " — Ah ! the 

grim old soldier's smile ! 
" Tell us, tell us why you look so ? " (we could 

hardly speak, we shook so), — 
" Are they beaten ? Are they beaten ? Are they 

beaten ? " — " Wait a while." 

Oh the trembling and the terror ! for too soon we 

saw our error : 
They are baffled, not defeated ; we have driven 

them back in vain ; 



128 GRANDMOTHERS STORY 

And the columns that were scattered, round the 

colors that were tattered, 
Toward the sullen, silent fortress turn their belted 

breasts again. 

All at once, as we are gazing, lo the roofs of Charles- 
town blazing ! 

They have fired the harmless village ; in an hour it 
will be down ! 

The Lord in heaven confound them, rain his fire 
and brimstone round them, — 

The robbing, murdering red-coats, that would burn 
a peaceful town ! 

They are marching, stern and solemn ; we can see 
each massive column 

As they near the naked earth-mound with the 
slanting walls so steep. 

Have our soldiers got faint-hearted, and in noise- 
less haste departed ? 

Are they panic-struck and helpless ? Are they 
palsied or asleep ? 

Now ! the walls they 're almost under ! scarce a rod 
the foes asunder ! 

Not a firelock flashed against them ! up the earth- 
work they will swarm ! 

But the words have scarce been spoken, when the 
ominous calm is broken, 

And a bellowing crash has emptied all the ven- 
geance of the storm ! 



GRANDMOTHER'S STORY 129 

So again, with murderous slaughter, pelted back- 
wards to the water, 

Fly Pigot's running heroes and the frightened 
braves of Howe ; 

And we shout, " At last they 're done for, it 's their 
barges they have run for : 

They are beaten, beaten, beaten ; and the battle 's 
over now ! " 

And we looked, poor timid creatures, on the rough 

old soldier's features, 
Our lips afraid to question, but he knew what we 

would ask : 
" Not sure," he said ; " keep quiet, — once more, I 

guess, they '11 try it — 
Here 's damnation to the cut-throats ! " — then he 

handed me his flask, . 

Saying, " Gal, you 're looking shaky ; have a drop 

of old Jamaiky ; 
I 'm afeared there '11 be more trouble afore the job 

is done ; " 
So I took one scorching swallow ; dreadful faint I 

felt and hollow, 
Standing there from early morning when the firing 

was begun. 

All through those hours of trial I had watched a 

calm clock dial, 
As the hands kept creeping, creeping — they were 

creeping round to four, 



130 GRANDMOTHER'S STORY 

When the old man said, " They 're forming with 
their bagonets fixed for storming : 

It 's the death-grip that 's a-coming, — they will 
try the works once more." 

With brazen trumpets blaring, the flames behind 
them glaring, 

The deadly wall before them, in close arrayj they 
come ; 

Still onward, upward toiling, like a dragon's fold 
uncoiling, — 

Like the rattlesnake's shrill warning the reverber- 
ating drum ! 

Over heaps all torn and gory — shall I tell the fear- 
ful story, 

How they surged above the breastwork, as a sea 
breaks over a deck ; 

How, driven, yet scarce defeated, our worn-out men 
retreated, 

With their powder-horns all emptied, like the 
swimmers from a wreck ? 

It has all been told and painted ; as for me, they 

say I fainted, 
And the wooden-legged old Corporal stumped with 

me down the stair : 
When I woke from dreams affrighted the evening 

lamps were lighted, — 
On the floor a youth was lying ; his bleeding breast 

was bare. 



GRANDMOTHER'S STORY 131 

And I heard through all the flurry, " Send for 

Warren ! hurry ! hurry ! 
Tell him here 's a soldier bleeding, and he '11 come 

and dress his wound ! " 
Ah, we knew not till the morrow told its tale of 

death and sorrow, 
How the starlight found him stiffened on the dark 

and bloody ground. 

Who the youth was, what his name was, where the 
place from which he came was, 

Who had brought him from the battle, and had 
left him at our door, 

He could not speak to tell us ; but 't was one of 
our brave fellows, 

As the homespun plainly showed us which the dy- 
ing soldier wore. 

For they all thought he was dying, as they gath- 
ered round him crying, — 

And they said, " Oh, how they '11 miss him ! " and, 
" What will his mother do ? " 

Then, his eyelids just unclosing like a child's that 
has been dozing, 

He faintly murmured, " Mother ! " -— and — I saw 
his eyes were blue. 

" Why, grandma, how you 're winking 1 " Ah, my 

child, it sets me thinking 
Of a story not like this one. Well, he somehow 

lived along ; 



132 THE SCHOOL-BOY 

So we came to know each other, and I nursed him 
like a — mother, 

Till at last he stood before me, tall, and rosy- 
cheeked, and strong. 

And we sometimes walked together in the pleasant 

summer weather, — 
" Please to tell us what his name was ? " Just your 

own, my little dear, — 
There 's his picture Copley painted : we became so 

well acquainted, 
That — in short, that 's why I 'm grandma, and you 

children all are here ! 



THE SCHOOL-BOY 

Read at the Centennial Celebration of the foundation of 
Phillips Academy, Andover. 

1778-1878 

THESE hallowed precincts, long to memory 
dear, 
Smile with fresh welcome as our feet draw near ; 
With softer gales the opening leaves are fanned, 
With fairer hues the kindling flowers expand, 
The rose-bush reddens with the blush of June, 
The groves are vocal with their minstrels' tune, 
The mighty elm, beneath whose arching shade 
The wandering children of the forest strayed, 
Greets the bright morning in its bridal dress, 
And spreads its arms the gladsome dawn to bless. 



THE SCHOOL-BOY 133 

Is it an idle dream that nature shares 
Our joys, our griefs, our pastimes, and our cares ? 
Is there no summons when, at morning's call, 
The sable vestments of the darkness fall ? 
Does not meek evening's low-voiced Ave blend 
With the soft vesper as its notes ascend ? 
Is there no whisper in the perfumed air 
When the sweet bosom of the rose is bare ? 
Does not the sunshine call us to rejoice ? 
Is there no meaning in the storm-cloud's voice ? 
No silent message when from midnight skies 
Heaven looks upon us with its myriad eyes ? 

Or shift the mirror ; say our dreams diffuse 
O'er life's pale landscape their celestial hues, 
Lend heaven the rainbow it has never known, 
And robe the earth in glories not its own, 
Sing their own music in the summer breeze, 
With fresher foliage clothe the stately trees, 
Stain the June blossoms with a livelier dye 
And spread a bluer azure on the sky, — 
Blest be the power that works its lawless will 
And finds the weediest patch an Eden still ; 
No walls so fair as those our fancies build, — 
No views so bright as those our visions gild ! 

So ran my lines, as pen and paper met, 
The truant goose-quill travelling like Planchette ; 
Too ready servant, whose deceitful ways 
Full many a slipshod line, alas ! betrays ; 
Hence of the rhyming thousand not a few 
Have builded worse — a great deal — than they 
knew. 



134 THE SCHOOL-BOY 

What need of idle fancy to adorn 
Our mother's birthplace on her birthday morn ? 
Hers are the blossoms of eternal spring, 
From these green boughs her new-fledged birds 

take wing, 
These echoes hear their earliest carols sung, 
In this old nest the brood is ever young. 
If some tired wanderer, resting from his flight, 
Amid the gay young choristers alight, 
These gather round him, mark his faded plumes 
That faintly still the far-off grove perfumes, 
And listen, wondering if some feeble note 
Yet lingers, quavering in his weary throat : — 
I, whose fresh voice yon red-faced temple knew, 
What tune is left me, fit to sing to you ? 
Ask not the grandeurs of a labored song, 
But let my easy couplets slide along ; 
Much could I tell you that you know too well ; 
Much I remember, but I will not tell ; 
Age brings experience ; graybeards oft are wise, 
But oh ! how sharp a youngster's ears and eyes ! 

My cheek was bare of adolescent down 
When first I sought the academic town ; 
Slow rolls the coach along the dusty road, 
Big with its filial and parental load ; 
The frequent hills, the lonely woods are past, 
The school-boy's chosen home is reached at last. 
I see it now, the same unchanging spot, 
The swinging gate, the little garden plot, 
The narrow yard, the rock that made its floor, 
The flat, pale house, the knocker-garnished door, 



THE SCHOOL-BOY 135 

The small, trim parlor, neat, decorous, chill, 
The strange, new faces, kind, but grave and still ; 
Two, creased with age, — or what I then called 

age,— 
Life's volume open at its fiftieth page ; 
One, a shy maiden's, pallid, placid, sweet 
As the first snowdrop, which the sunbeams greet ; 
One, the last nursling's ; slight she was, and fair, 
Her smooth white forehead warmed with auburn 

hair ; 
Last came the virgin Hymen long had spared, 
Whose daily cares the grateful household shared, 
Strong, patient, humble ; her substantial frame 
Stretched the chaste draperies I forbear to name. 
Brave, but with effort, had the school-boy come 
To the cold comfort of a stranger's home ; 
How like a dagger to my sinking heart 
Come the dry summons, " It is time to part ; 
Good-by ! " " Goo — ood-by ! " one fond maternal 

kiss. . . . 
Homesick as death ! Was ever pang like 

this? . . . 
Too young as yet with willing feet to stray 
From the tame fireside, glad to get away, — 
Too old to let my watery grief appear, — 
And what so bitter as a swallowed tear ! 

One figure still my vagrant thoughts pursue ; 
First boy to greet me, Ariel, where are you ? 
Imp of all mischief, heaven alone knows how 
You learned it all, — are you an angel now, 
Or tottering gently down the slope of years, 
Your face grown sober in the vale of tears ? 



136 THE SCHOOL-BOY 

Forgive my freedom if you are breathing still ; 
If in a happier world, I know you will. 
You were a school-boy — what beneath the sun 
So like a monkey ? I was also one. 

Strange, sure enough, to see what curious shoots 
The nursery raises from the study's roots ! 
In those old days the very, very good 
Took up more room — a little — than they should ; 
Something too much one's eyes encountered then 
Of serious youth and funeral-vis aged men ; 
The solemn elders saw life's mournful half, — 
Heaven sent this boy, whose mission was to laugh, 
Drollest of buffos, Nature's odd protest, 
A catbird squealing in a blackbird's nest. 

Kind, faithful Nature ! While the sour-eyed 
Scot — 
Her cheerful smiles forbidden or forgot — 
Talks only of his preacher and his kirk, — 
Hears five-hour sermons for his Sunday work, — 
Praying and fasting till his meagre face 
Gains its due length, the genuine sign of grace, — 
An Ayrshire mother in the land of Knox 
Her embryo poet in his cradle rocks ; — 
Nature, long shivering in her dim eclipse, 
Steals in a sunbeam to those baby lips ; 
So to its home her banished smile returns, 
And Scotland sweetens with the song of Burns ! 

The morning came ; I reached the classic hall ; 
A clock-face eyed me, staring from the wall ; 
Beneath its hands a printed line I read : 
Youth is life's seed-time: so the clock-face 
said: 



THE SCHOOL-BOY 137 

Some took its counsel, as the sequel showed, — 
Sowed, — their wild oats, — and reaped as they had 
sowed. 

How all comes back ! the upward slanting 
floor, — 
The masters' thrones that flank the central door, — 
The long, outstretching alleys that divide 
The rows of desks that stand on either side, — 
The staring boys, a face to every desk, 
Bright, dull, pale, blooming, common, picturesque. 

Grave is the Master's look; his forehead wears 
Thick rows of wrinkles, prints of worrying cares ; 
Uneasy lie the heads of all that rule, 
His most of all whose kingdom is a school. 
Supreme he sits ; before the awful frown 
That bends his brows the boldest eye goes down ; 
Not more submissive Israel heard and saw 
At Sinai's foot the Giver of the Law. 

Less stern he seems, who sits in equal state 
On the twin throne and shares the empire's weight ; 
Around his lips the subtle life that plays 
Steals quaintly forth in many a jesting phrase ; 
A lightsome nature, not so hard to chafe, 
Pleasant when pleased ; rough-handled, not so 

safe; 
Some tingling memories vaguely I recall, 
But to forgive him. God forgive us all 1 

One yet remains, whose well-remembered name 
Pleads in my grateful heart its tender claim ; 
His was the charm magnetic, the bright look 
That sheds its sunshine on the dreariest book ; 



138 THE SCHOOL-BOY 

A loving soul to every task he brought 

That sweetly mingled with the lore he taught ; 

Sprung from a saintly race that never could 

From youth to age be anything but good, 

His few brief years in holiest labors spent, 

Earth lost too soon the treasure heaven had lent. 

Kindest of teachers, studious to divine 

Some hint of promise in my earliest line, 

These faint and faltering words thou canst not 

hear 
Throb from a heart that holds thy memory dear. 

As to the traveller's eye the varied plain 
Shows through the window of the flying train, 
A mingled landscape, rather felt than seen, 
A gravelly bank, a sudden flash of green, 
A tangled wood, a glittering stream that flows 
Through the cleft summit where the cliff once rose, 
All strangely blended in a hurried gleam, 
Rock, wood, waste, meadow, village, hillside, 

stream, — 
So, as we look behind us, life appears, 
Seen through the vista of our bygone years. 

Yet in the dead past's shadow-filled domain, 
Some vanished shapes the hues of life retain ; 
Unbidden, oft, before our dreaming eyes 
From the vague mists in memory's path they rise. 
So comes his blooming image to my view, 
The friend of joyous days when life was new, 
Hope yet untamed, the blood of youth unchilled, 
"No blank arrear of promise unfulfilled, 
Life's flower yet hidden in its sheltering fold, 
Its pictured canvas yet to be unrolled, 



THE SCHOOL-BOY 139 

His the frank smile I vainly look to greet, 

His the warm grasp my clasping hand should 

meet ; 
How would our lips renew their school-boy talk, 
Our feet retrace the old familiar walk ! 
For thee no more earth's cheerful morning shines 
Through the green fringes of the tented pines ; 
Ah me ! is heaven so far thou canst not hear, 
Or is thy viewless spirit hovering near, 
A fair young presence, bright with morning's glow, 
The fresh-cheeked boy of fifty years ago ? 

Yes, fifty years, with all their circling suns, 
Behind them all my glance reverted runs ; 
Where now that time remote, its griefs, its joys, 
Where are its gray-haired men, its bright-haired 

boys? 
Where is the patriarch time could hardly tire, — 
The good old, wrinkled, immemorial " squire " ? 
(An honest treasurer, like a black-plumed swan, 
Not every day our eyes may look upon.) 
Where the tough champion who, with Calvin's 

sword, 
In wordy conflicts battled for the Lord ? 
Where the grave scholar, lonely, calm, austere, 
Whose voice like music charmed the listening ear, 
Whose light rekindled, like the^morning star 
Still shines upon us through the gates ajar ? 
Where the still, solemn, weary, sad-eyed man, 
Whose care-worn face my wandering eyes would 

scan, — 
His features wasted in the lingering strife 
With the pale foe that drains the student's life ? 



140 THE SCHOOL-BOY 

Where my old friend, the scholar, teacher, saint, 

Whose creed, some hinted, showed a speck af taint : 

He broached his own opinion, which is not 

Lightly to be forgiven or forgot ; 

Some riddle's point, — I scarce remember now, — 

Homo/-, perhaps, where they said homo-ou. 

(If the unlettered greatly wish to know 

Where lies the difference betwixt oi and o, 

Those of the curious who have time may search 

Among the stale conundrums of their church.) 

Beneath his roof his peaceful life I shared, 

And for his modes of faith I little cared, — 

I, taught to judge men's dogmas by their deeds, 

Long ere the days of india-rubber creeds. 

Why should we look one common faith to find, 
Where one in every score is color-blind ? 
If here on earth they know not red from green, 
Will they see better into things unseen ! 

Once more to time's old graveyard I return 
And scrape the moss from memory's pictured urn. 
Who, in these days when all things go by steam, 
Recalls the stage-coach with its four-horse team? 
Its sturdy driver, — who remembers him? 
Or the old landlord, saturnine and grim, 
Who left our hill-top for a new abode 
And reared his sign-post farther down the road ? 
Still in the waters of the dark Shawshine 
Do the young bathers splash and think they're 

clean ? 
Do pilgrims find their way to Indian Ridge, 
Or journey onward to the far-off bridge, 



THE SCHOOL-BOY 141 

And bring to younger ears the story back 
Of the broad stream, the mighty Merrimac? 
Are there still truant feet that stray beyond 
These circling bounds to Pomp's or Haggett's 

Pond, 
Or where the legendary name recalls 
The forest's earlier tenant, — " Deerjump Falls " ? 

Yes, every nook these youthful feet explore, 
Just as our sires and grandsires did of yore ; 
So all life's opening paths, where nature led 
Their father's feet, the children's children tread. 
Poll the round century's fivescore years away, 
Call from our storied past that earliest day 
When great Eliphalet (I can see him now, — 
Big name, big frame, big voice, and beetling 

brow), 
Then young Eliphalet, — ruled the rows of boys 
In homespun gray or old-world corduroys, — 
And save for fashion's whims, the benches show 
The selfsame youths, the very boys we know. 
Time works strange marvels : since I trod the 

green 
And swung the gates, what wonders I have seen ! 
But come what will, — the sky itself may fall, — 
As things of course the boy accepts them all. 
The prophet's chariot, drawn by steeds of flame, J 
For daily use our travelling millions claim ; 
The face we love a sunbeam makes our own ; 
No more the surgeon hears the sufferer's groan 5 
What unwrit histories wrapped in darkness lay 
Till shovelling Schliemann bared them to the 

day! 



142 THE SCHOOL-BOY 

Your Richelieu says, and says it well, my lord, 
The pen is (sometimes) mightier than the sword ; 
Great is the goosequill, say we all ; Amen ! 
Sometimes the spade is mightier than the pen ; 
It shows where Babel's terraced walls were raised, 
The slabs that cracked when Mmrod's palace 

blazed, 
Unearths Mycenae, rediscovers Troy, — 
Calmly he listens, that immortal boy. 
A new Prometheus tips our wands with fire, 
A mightier Orpheus strains the whispering wire, 
Whose lightning thrills the lazy winds outrun 
And hold the hours as Joshua stayed the sun, — 
So swift, in truth, we hardly find a place 
For those dim fictions known as time and space. 
Still a new miracle each year supplies, — 
See at his work the chemist of the skies, 
Who questions Sirius in his tortured rays 
And steals the secret of the solar blaze ; 
Hush 1 while the window-rattling bugles play 
The nation's airs a hundred miles away ! 
That wicked phonograph ! hark ! how it swears ! 
Turn it again and make it say its prayers ! 
And was it true, then, what the story said 
Of Oxford's friar and his brazen head ? 
While wondering Science stands, herself per- 
plexed 
At each day's miracle, and asks " What next ? " 
The immortal boy, the coming heir of all, 
Springs from his desk to " urge the flying ball," 
Cleaves with his bending oar the glassy waves, 
With sinewy arm the dashing current braves, 



THE SCHOOL-BOY 143 

The same bright creature in these haunts of ours 
That Eton shadowed with her " antique towers/' 

Boy ! Where is he ? the long-limbed youth in- 
quires, 
Whom his rough chin with manly pride inspires ; 
Ah, when the ruddy cheek no longer glows, 
When the bright hair is white as winter snows, 
When the dim eye has lost its lambent flame, 
Sweet to his ear will be his school-boy name ! 
Nor think the difference mighty as it seems 
Between life's morning and its evening dreams ; 
Fourscore, like twenty, has its tasks and toys ; 
In earth's wide school-house all are girls and boys. 

Brothers, forgive my wayward fancy. Who 
Can guess beforehand what his pen will do ? 
Too light my strain for listeners such as these, 
Whom graver thoughts and soberer speech shall 

please. 
Is he not here whose breath of holy song 
Has raised the downcast eyes of Faith so long ? 
Are they not here, the strangers in your gates, 
For whom the wearied ear impatient waits, — 
The large-brained scholars whom their toils re- 
lease, — 
The bannered heralds of the Prince of Peace ? 

Such was the gentle friend whose youth un- 
blamed 
In years long past our student-benches claimed ; 
Whose name, illumined on the sacred page, 



144 THE SCHOOL-BOY 

Lives in the labors of his riper age ; 
Such he whose record time's destroying march 
Leaves uneffaced on Zion's springing arch : 
Not to the scanty phrase of measured song, 
Cramped in its fetters, names like these belong ; 
One ray they lend to gild my slender line, — 
Their praise I leave to sweeter lips than mine. 

Homes of our sires, where Learning's temple 
rose, 
While yet they struggled with their banded foes, 
As in the West thy century's sun descends, 
One parting gleam its dying radiance lends. 
Darker and deeper though the shadows fall 
From the gray towers on Doubting Castle's wall, 
Though Pope and Pagan re-array their hosts, 
And her new armor youthful Science boasts, 
Truth, for whose altar rose this holy shrine, 
Shall fly for refuge to these bowers of thine ; 
No past shall chain her with its rusted vow, 
No Jew's phylactery bind her Christian brow, 
But Faith shall smile to find her sister free, 
And nobler manhood draw its life from thee. 

Long as the arching skies above thee spread, 
As on thy groves the dews of heaven are shed, 
With currents widening still from year to year, 
And deepening channels, calm, untroubled, clear, 
Flow the twin streamlets from thy sacred hill — 
Pieria's fount and Siloam's shaded rill ! 



AT THE SATURDAY CLUB 145 



AT THE SATURDAY CLUB 

About the time when these papers [The Autocrat] were 
published, the Saturday Club was founded, or, rather, 
found itself in existence, without any organization, almost 
without parentage. It was natural enough that such men 
as Emerson, Longfellow, Agassiz, Peirce, with Hawthorne, 
Motley, Sumner, when within reach, and others who would 
be good company for them, should meet and dine together 
once in a while, as they did, in point of fact, every month, 
and as some who are still living, with other and newer 
members, still meet and dine. If some of them had not ad- 
mired each other they would have been exceptions in the 
world of letters and science. The club deserves being remem- 
bered for having no constitution or by-laws, for making 
no speeches, reading no papers, observing no ceremonies, 
coming and going at will without remark, and acting out, 
though it did not proclaim the motto, " Shall I not take 
mine ease in mine inn ? " There was and is nothing of the 
Bohemian element about this club, but it has had many 
good times and not a little good talking. 

THIS is our place of meeting ; opposite 
That towered and pillared building : look at 

it; 
King's Chapel in the Second George's day, 
Rebellion stole its regal name away, — 
Stone Chapel sounded better ; but at last 
The poisoned name of our provincial past 
Had lost its ancient venom ; then once more 
Stone Chapel was King's Chapel as before. 
(So let rechristened North Street, when it can, 
Bring back the days of Marlborough and Queen 

Anne 1 ) 



146 AT THE SATURDAY CLUB 

Next the old church your wandering eye will 
meet — 
A granite pile that stares upon the street — 
Our civic temple ; slanderous tongues have said 
Its shape was modelled from St. Botolph's head, 
Lofty, but narrow ; jealous passers-by 
Say Boston always held her head too high. 

Turn half-way round, and let your look survey 
The white f acade, that gleams across the way, — 
The many-windowed building, tall and wide, 
The palace-inn that shows its northern side 
In grateful shadow when the sunbeams beat 
The granite wall in summer's scorching heat. 
This is the place ; whether its name you spell 
Tavern, or caravansera, or hotel. 
Would I could steal its echoes ! you should find 
Such store of vanished pleasures brought to mind : 
Such feasts ! the laughs of many a jocund hour 
That shook the mortar from King George's tower ; 
Such guests ! What famous names its record 

boasts, 
Whose owners wander in the mob of ghosts ! 
Such stories ! Every beam and plank is filled 
With juicy wit the joyous talkers spilled, 
Beady to ooze, as once the mountain pine 
The floors are laid with oozed its turpentine ! 

A month had flitted since The Club had met ; 
The day came round ; I found the table set, 
The waiters lounging round the marble stairs, 
Empty as yet the double row of chairs. 
I was a full half hour before the rest, 
Alone, the banquet-chamber's single guest. 



AT THE SATURDAY CLUB 147 

So from the table's side a chair I took, 
And having neither company nor book 
To keep me waking, by degrees there crept 
A torpor over me, — in short, I slept. 

Loosed from its chain, along the wreck-strown 
track 
Of the dead years my soul goes travelling back ; 
My ghosts take on their robes of flesh ; it seems 
Dreaming is life ; nay, life less life than dreams, 
So real are the shapes that meet my eyes. 
They bring no sense of wonder, no surprise, 
No hint of other than an earth-born source ; 
All seems plain daylight, everything of course. 

How dim the colors are, how poor and faint 
This palette of weak words with which I paint ! 
Here sit my friends ; if I could fix them so 
As to my eyes they seem, my page would glow 
Like a queen's missal, warm as if the brush 
Of Titian or Velasquez brought the flush 
Of life into their features. Ay de mi ! 
If syllables were pigments, you should see 
Such breathing portraitures as never man 
Found in the Pitti or the Vatican. 

Here sits our Poet, Laureate, if you will. 
Long has he worn the wreath, and wears it still. 
Dead f Nay, not so ; and yet they say his bust 
Looks down on marbles covering royal dust, 
Kings by the Grace of God, or Nature's grace ; 
Dead ! No ! Alive ! I see him in his place, 
Full - featured, with the bloom that heaven de- 
nies 
Her children, pinched by cold New England skies, 



148 AT THE SATURDAY CLUB 

Too often, while the nursery's happier few 
Win from a summer cloud its roseate hue. 
Kind, soft-voiced, gentle, in his eye there shines 
The ray serene that filled Evangeline's. 

Modest he seems, not shy ; content to wait 
Amid the noisy clamor of debate 
The looked-f or moment when a peaceful word 
Smooths the rough ripples louder tongues have 

stirred. 
In every tone I mark his tender grace 
And all his poems hinted in his face ; 
What tranquil joy his friendly presence gives ! 
How could I think him dead ? He lives ! He 
lives ! 

There, at the table's further end I see 
In his old place our Poet's vis-a-vis, 
The great Professor, strong, broad-shouldered, 

square, 
In life's rich noontide, joyous, debonair. 
His social hour no leaden care alloys, 
His laugh rings loud and mirthful as a boy's, — 
That lusty laugh the Puritan forgot, — 
What ear has heard it and remembers not ? 
How often, halting at some wide crevasse 
Amid the windings of his Alpine pass, 
High up the cliffs, the climbing mountaineer, 
Listening the f ar-off avalanche to hear, 
Silent, and leaning on his steel-shod staff, 
Has heard that cheery voice, that ringing laugh, 
From the rude cabin whose nomadic walls 
Creep with the moving glacier as it crawls ! 



AT THE SATURDAY CLUB 149 

Hew does vast Nature lead her living train 
In ordered sequence through that spacious brain, 
As in the primal hour when Adam named 
The new-born tribes that young creation claimed ! — 
How will her realm be darkened, losing thee, 
Her darling, whom we call our Agassiz ! 

But who is he whose massive frame belies 
The maiden shyness of his downcast eyes ? 
Who broods in silence till, by questions pressed, 
Some answer struggles from his laboring breast ? 
An artist Nature meant to dwell apart, 
Locked in his studio with a human heart, 
Tracking its caverned passions to their lair, 
And all its throbbing mysteries laying bare. 

Count it no marvel that he broods alone 
Over the heart he studies, — 't is his own ; 
So in his page, whatever shape it wear, 
The Essex wizard's shadowed self is there, — 
The great Romancer, hid beneath his veil 
Like the stern preacher of his sombre tale ; 
Virile in strength, yet bashful as a girl, 
Prouder than Hester, sensitive as Pearl. 

From his mild throng of worshippers released, 
Our Concord Delphi sends its chosen priest, 
Prophet or poet, mystic, sage, or seer, 
By every title always welcome here. 
Why that ethereal spirit's frame describe ? 
You know the race-marks of the Brahmin tribe, — 
The spare, slight form, the sloping shoulder's 

droop, 
The calm, scholastic mien, the clerkly stoop, 



150 AT THE SATURDAY CLUB 

The lines of thought the sharpened features wear, 
Carved by the edge of keen New England air. 

List! for he speaks! As when a king would 
choose 
The jewels for his bride, he might refuse 
This diamond for its flaw, — find that less bright 
Than those, its fellows, and a pearl less white 
Than fits her snowy neck, and yet at last, 
The fairest gems are chosen, and made fast 
In golden fetters ; so, with light delays 
He seeks the fittest word to fill his phrase ; 
Nor vain nor idle his fastidious quest, 
His chosen word is sure to prove the best. 

Where in the realm of thought, whose air is song, 
Does he, the Buddha of the West, belong ? 
He seems a winged Franklin, sweetly wise, 
Born to unlock the secrets of the skies ; 
And which the nobler calling, — if 't is fair 
Terrestrial with celestial to compare, — 
To guide the storm-cloud's elemental flame, 
Or walk the chambers whence the lightning came, 
Amidst the sources of its subtile fire, 
And steal their effluence for his lips and lyre ? 

If lost at times in vague aerial flights, 
None treads with firmer footstep when he lights ; 
A soaring nature, ballasted with sense, 
Wisdom without her wrinkles or pretence, 
In every Bible he has faith to read, 
And every altar helps to shape his creed. 
Ask you what name this prisoned spirit bears 
While with ourselves this fleeting breath it shares ? 
Till angels greet him with a sweeter one 
In heaven, on earth we call him Emerson. 



THE IRON GATE 151 

I start ; I wake ; the vision is withdrawn ; 
Its figures fading like the stars at dawn ; 
Crossed from the roll of life their cherished names, 
And memory's pictures fading in their frames ; 
Yet life is lovelier for these transient gleams 
Of buried friendships ; blest is he who dreams ! 



THE IRON GATE 

[Read at the Breakfast given in honor of Dr. Holmes's 
Seventieth Birthday by the publishers of the Atlantic 
Monthly, Boston, December 3, 1879.] 

WHERE is this patriarch you are kindly 
greeting ? 
Not unfamiliar to my ear his name, 
Nor yet unknown to many a joyous meeting 
In days long vanished, — is he still the same, 

Or changed by years, forgotten and forgetting, 
Dull-eared, dim-sighted, slow of speech and 
thought, 

Still o'er the sad, degenerate present fretting, 
Where all goes wrong, and nothing as it ought ? 

Old age, the graybeard ! Well, indeed, I know 
him, — 
Shrunk, tottering, bent, of aches and ills the 
prey; 
In sermon, story, fable, picture, poem, 
Oft have I met him from my earliest day : 



152 THE IRON GATE 

In my old iEsop, toiling with his bundle, — 
His load of sticks, — politely asking Death, 

Who comes when called , for — would he lug or 
trundle 
His fagot for him ? — he was scant of breath. 

And sad " Ecclesiastes, or the Preacher," — 
Has he not stamped the image on my soul, 

In that last chapter, where the worn-out Teacher 
Sighs o'er the loosened cord, the broken bowl ? 

Yes, long, indeed, I 've known him at a distance, 
And now my lifted door-latch shows him here ; 

I take his shrivelled hand without resistance, 
And find him smiling as his step draws near. 

What though of gilded baubles he bereaves us, 
Dear to the heart of youth, to manhood's prime ; 

Think of the calm he brings, the wealth he leaves 
us, 
The hoarded spoils, the legacies of time I 

Altars once flaming, still with incense fragrant, 
Passion's uneasy nurslings rocked asleep 

Hope's anchor faster, wild desire less vagrant, 
Life's flow less noisy, but the stream how deep ! 

Still as the silver cord gets worn and slender, 
Its lightened task-work tugs wi>\ lessening 
strain, 
Hands get more helpful, voices, grown more tender, 
Soothe with their softened tones the slumberous 
brain. 



THE IRON GATE 153 

Youth longs and manhood strives, but age remem- 
bers, 

Sits by the raked-up ashes of the past, 
Spreads its thin hands above the whitening embers 

That warm its creeping life-blood till the last. 

Dear to its heart is every loving token 

That comes unbidden ere its pulse grows cold, 

Ere the last lingering ties of life are broken, 
Its labors ended and its story told. 

Ah, while around us rosy youth rejoices, 
For us the sorrow-laden breezes sigh, 

And through the chorus of its jocund voices 
Throbs the sharp note of misery's hopeless cry. 

As on the gauzy wings of fancy flying 

From some far orb I track our watery sphere, 

Home of the struggling, suffering, doubting, dying 
The silvered globule seems a glistening tear. 

But Nature lends her mirror of illusion 

To win from saddening scenes our age-dimmed 
eyes, 

And m.sty day-dreams blend in sweet confusion 
The wintry landscape and the summer skies. 

So when the iron portal shuts behind us, 
And life forgets us in its noise and whirl, 

Visions that shunned the glaring noonday find us, 
And glimmering starlight shows the gates of 
pearl. 



154 THE IRON GATE 

I come not here your morning hour to sadden, 
A limping pilgrim, leaning on his staff, — 

I, who have never deemed it sin to gladden 
This vale of sorrows with a wholesome laugh. 

If word of mine another's gloom has brightened, 
Through my dumb lips the heaven-sent message 
came; 

If hand of mine another's task has lightened, 
It felt the guidance that it dares not claim. 

But, O my gentle sisters, O my brothers, 

These thick-sown snow-flakes hint of toil's re- 
lease ; 

These feebler pulses bid me leave to others 

The tasks once welcome ; evening asks for peace. 

Time claims his tribute ; silence now is golden ; 

Let me not vex the too long suffering lyre ; 
Though to your love untiring still beholden, 

The curfew tells me — cover up the fire. 

And now with grateful smile and accents cheerful, 

And warmer heart than look or word can tell, 
In simplest phrase — these traitorous eyes are 
tearful — 
Thanks, Brothers, Sisters, — Children, — and 
farewell ! 



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Evangeline : A Tale of Acadie. With In- 
troduction and Notes. 

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 

SNOW-BOUND, AND OTHER AUTOBIOGRAPHIC 

Poems. With Introduction and Notes. 

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
The One Hoss Shay, The Chambered Nau- 
tilus, and Other Poems, Gay and Grave. 
With an Introduction. 

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 
The Vision of Sir Launfal, A Fable for 
Critics, and the Commemoration Ode. 
With Introduction and Notes. 

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Legends of the Province House, and 
Other Twice-Told Tales. With an Intro- 
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